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“Remember, Amedee, there will some day be a man’s work for 
you to do.” 













PROVERB STORIES 

OF 

MANY LANDS 

BY 

LUCILE BERK 

ILLUSTRATED 



THE CENTURY CO. 

NEW YORK AND LONDON 



?JW 

t&A'SI 3 

' TW 


Copyright, 1924, by 
The Century Co. 



i 

Printed in U. S. A. 


SEP-3 *24 


© Cl'ft 80 0 65 8 



CONTENTS 


PAGE 

The Warrior of the Green Twig .... i 

The Princess and the Worm.19 

The Cake-Vender of Moscow.35 

Cornelia of the Seven Hills.53 

The Story of Itudu .73 

The Voice of Pietro in the Crowd ... 89 

Lady Mary Shakes the Tree.113 

The Black Camel.133 

The Godchild of the Sea.153 

The Lotus-Flower of the Jumna . . . . 175 

The Long Hunter Lifts His Gun . . . .221 

The Cannon-Balls of Alkmaar 


221 














ILLUSTRATIONS 


“Remember, Amedee, there will some day be a 
man’s work for you to do” .... Frontispiece 

FACING PAGE 

Alexander led him through the snow-storm . . 42 
Lady Mary is toasted by the Kit-Cat Club . . 126 
He was made tender of a small herd of camels . 140 


THE WARRIOR OF THE GREEN TWIG 



PROVERB STORIES 
OF MANY LANDS 

THE WARRIOR OF THE GREEN TWIG 

E VEN if you have not seen the castle of 
Chillon, I am sure you have read about it, 
for it has been immortalized in Lord Byron's 
poem “The Prisoner of Chillon." It is small 
wonder that the poet felt the spell of the ancient 
gray structure, situated so picturesquely on a 
tiny island in the clear blue waters of the Lake 
of Geneva. As I wandered through the majes¬ 
tic halls and damp, gloomy dungeons, I, too, 
pictured all the life and power that dwelt within 
them in former times, when Chillon was the 
stronghold of the noble house of Savoy. 

As you know, the story Lord Byron has 
revivified in his stirring poem is that of the 
great liberator Bonivard, who languished for 
six years in the subterranean dungeon, but 
3 


4 Proverb Stories pf Many Lands 

who at last was freed, and his beloved country 
of Berne, also. But it was another story I 
recalled as I sat on a stone step in the inner 
court, a story dating much earlier, yet quite as 
romantic and equally worthy of Byron’s in¬ 
spired pen. This story has been left unnoticed 
for so many years, that it is surely high time 
it were recorded, lest it pass into oblivion 
entirely., 

Brushing aside the cobwebs and dust of 
nearly six hundred years, let us follow the story 
of the child Amedee, whose home was the castle 
of Chillon, and whose life is a chronicle of keen 
adventure., 

To be quite exact, Amedee was born in the 
winter of the year 1334, the only son of Count 
Aimo of Savoy and his beautiful consort, the 
Countess Clementine. Those were troublous 
times, when a man’s glory was measured by his 
conquests, and war and strife were almost con¬ 
tinual; and Amedee, though he resembled his 
mother’s family and was delicate and spirit- 
uelle, had been nursed from his earliest recol¬ 
lection on the stories of battle and the brave 
traditions of his illustrious family. 


The Warrior of the Green Twig 5 

The fair-skinned, golden-haired child with 
the dark, dreamy eyes sat for hours at the knee 
of Father Raffaello, the old family chaplain, or 
sometimes on a low settle beside his father, and 
heard repeated the stories of the prowess of his 
great-grandfather, Amadeus the Fourth, and 
of his grandfather, Amadeus the Fifth, for 
whom he had been named, and whose glorious 
conquests had added to the domains of the 
house of Savoy. 

“And it is in their footsteps that thou shalt 
follow, little Amedee,” he had been told, “so 
that the lands of Savoy may grow broader and 
its people mightier, and the name of Amadeus 
ring out even to the great ocean.” 

He would look at his mother at such times, 
and kiss her pale cheeks and trembling lips, in 
an instinctive, childish effort to comfort her. 
She was very gentle, his lovely mother Clemen¬ 
tine, and to her, battle and conquest meant pain 
and bloodshed and terror. She would clasp 
the child as though to protect him, and hold 
him close to her heart, and her imagination 
would picture the dangers he must encounter 
when he was grown and went out into the world 


6 Proverb Stories of Many Lands 

to lead the cruel life of men. A little of her 
anguish and fear crept into the heart of the 
child also, and he would assure her he had no 
desire for fame, but would remain with her 
always, to stroke her little white hands and 
caress the golden plaits of her hair. No doubt 
it was because of this that Amedee’s cousins— 
and also his father, sometimes—feared that the 
boy was a coward, and nicknamed him the 
“Warrior of the Green Twig.” 

“If thou wilt sit in the courtyard of the castle, 
and wave thy little green twig,” his cousins 
would shout derisively, “then thy enemies will 
tear thy lands asunder and kill thee with the 
sword!” 

Little Amedee would run to his mother and 
tell her of their taunts, and she would soothe 
him and lead him to happier thoughts. And 
so he grew, in time, to be nine years old. 

That was the year that his uncle Conrad 
came for a long visit to the castle of Chillon. 
He was a handsome young man of twenty, 
was Conrad of Montferrat, tall and slim like 
his sister Clementine, though of dark com¬ 
plexion, while she was fair. Amedee fell 


The Warrior of the Green Twig 7 

readily under the spell of this clever young 
uncle, who possessed so many elegant accom¬ 
plishments and was so unlike the coarser, stur¬ 
dier members of his father’s family. In the 
quiet moonlight evenings of summer, when the 
large open court of the castle was bathed in soft 
silver light, Conrad would sit strumming on his 
guitar, and singing the melodious ballads of 
his native province. And the child would draw 
closer and closer, and give himself up to the en¬ 
chantment of the music. 

Count Aimo and his nephews, however, felt 
no great admiration for this visitor at the 
castle. They offered him every courtesy, for 
that was an age when hospitality was a noble 
art; but when Conrad was not present, they 
intimated their contempt for a grown man 
whose slender white fingers had never grasped 
a lance, and whose wits were never matched 
against an adversary but were content to spend 
themselves in the invention of pretty ditties to 
be sung to fair ladies. Amedee felt the angry 
blood rush to his head as they spoke, and he 
burst out in childish defense of his handsome 
uncle. But his father only smiled and said: 


8 Proverb Stories of Many Lands 

“Thou art young, Amedee. Thou hast not 
yet learned that life is not a love-ballad, nor this 
earth a land of dreams.” 

In the autumn Count Aimo fell ill. He was 
leeched and poulticed, and all manner of herbs 
were administered, but with scant effect. There 
was only one hope left him: he must make a 
pilgrimage to Rome. Sorrowfully his lady 
Clementine and little Amedee helped him make 
his preparations for the difficult, tedious jour¬ 
ney on horseback, over rough mountain roads 
and through unfriendly provinces. Twenty 
sturdy young followers, his nephews among 
them, polished their swords and mended their 
armor; for they were to accompany their 
stricken liege, and knew full well the hazards 
of the open road. When the count had been 
lifted to his powerful gray war-horse, he held 
out his hand to his brother-in-law. 

“I leave my lady and my little son in your 
care, Conrad,” he said. “You must protect 
them, and my people, and my lands. And pray 
that I may come back healed and strong, so that 
my enemies shall not cease to feel the power of 
the fearless house of Savoy. 


The Warrior of the Green Twig 9 

“Do not weep, my Clementine,” he bade his 
wife. “The lady of a brave knight must culti¬ 
vate a resolute heart.” 

Then he turned to his son: 

“And you, my little Amedee, God bless and 
keep you! Play your happy games among the 
birds and flowers. But remember, there will 
some day be a man’s work for you to do; and 
when that day dawns, you should be waiting 
and ready!” 

And so the count rode out across the draw¬ 
bridge and turned down the road, the only road 
in those days that led through the mountains 
to Rome; and his proud standards and the 
bright trappings of his followers floated in 
the wind. Amedee climbed to the topmost 
turret of the southeast wing of the castle and 
watched the retreating figures on their pranc¬ 
ing chargers as they grew smaller and smaller 
in the distance and at last were lost to view. 

It was his favorite playground, that southeast 
turret, where the lake birds nested, and from 
where the mountain peaks could be counted, tier 
upon tier, until they seemed to melt into the pur¬ 
ple-gray of the clouds. And it was from this 


10 Proverb Stories of Many Lands 

vantage-point that Amedee spied a troop of 
horsemen coming along the road. 

It was the third day after his father’s de¬ 
parture, and the child felt lonely and a little 
uneasy. We all know the feeling, I am sure, 
for we all have experienced the sense of security 
in a father’s and mother’s protection, and the 
disturbing effect of the absence of either. Little 
Amedee had no clear idea of the cause of his 
disquietude, but unconsciously he sought this 
high turret, from which he could look so far 
toward the south, and perhaps behold the snowy 
mountain-peaks at the base of which his 
father’s followers might even then be wending 
their difficult way. 

A flash of light far down the road, as glaring 
as when a mirror reflects a ray of the sun, made 
Amedee rub his eyes and peer intently into the 
distance. Soon he could discern horsemen, 
many of them, advancing along the road. His 
little heart leapt with exultation. Was this 
father returning so soon? But it sank again 
when he saw how many moving figures there 
were—perhaps ten times the little handful that 
had ridden out with Count Aimo a few days 


The Warrior of the Green Twig ll 

before. The child hurried excitedly down the 
narrow stairway. 

“Uncle Conrad! Uncle Conrad!” he called 
loudly. “Don’t you see them coming ?” 

“See whom?” inquired Uncle Conrad, rather 
annoyed to be interrupted in his daily game of 
dominoes with Father Raffaello. 

“Strange soldiers are coming up the road— 
many, many of them! Oh, Uncle Conrad, my 
father is not here, and I am afraid!” 

The pale Italian face turned a shade paler as 
Conrad rose. Father Raffaello put his hand 
upon the young man’s arm. 

“Let the child call the men together, and give 
them the order to guard the turrets,” he sug¬ 
gested. 

Conrad nodded impatiently, and went to look 
out upon the road. 

The old priest grasped the shoulders of the 
nine-year-old child, and looked straight into 
his eyes. He knew a great deal about the 
world, and could judge men wisely. 

“Think of thy brave father, little Amedee,” 
he whispered, “and thy gentle, frightened 
mother.” 


12 Proverb Stories of Many Lands 

And suddenly, into the terrified little heart 
crept a strange feeling of strength. Amedee 
thought of his father’s last words at parting: 
“When that day dawns, you should be waiting 
and ready!” Then off he ran, through the long 
corridors and courts, calling to the servants 
and gathering the defenders of his fortress 
home. 

At the foot of a stairway he came upon his 
mother, weeping and wringing her hands. 

“My boy! My little Amedee,” she cried, 
“come with me’ I have been searching for 
you, in every room and passageway. There is 
great excitement and rushing about, and the 
clanking of armor and shouting, and many 
other ominous noises. I can feel in the air that 
there is danger. Come with me, my little one; 
in the subterranean vaults we shall be safe.” 

But Amedee broke away from her slender 
white arms. 

“Go thou into the vaults, my mother,” he 
said. “Thy son, and my brave father’s also, 
hath cast aside his little green twig!” 

When he returned to his uncle and the old 
chaplain, they were peering through a narrow 


The Warrior of the Green Twig 13 

slit in the stone masonry, at the horde of 
strangers swarming upon the road. 

“Such a fuss, and all for nothing!” said 
Conrad, bursting into a nervous, mirthless 
laugh. “I can see their standards plainly now. 
They are the men from Chieri, neighbors and 
friends of the house of Montferrat. Lower the 
drawbridge, you stupid knaves, and bid them 
enter. We shall have guests at Chillon to¬ 
night !” 

But the voice of the child piped up quick and 
clear: 

“No, no, my uncle! Let them not enter! My 
eyes must be sharper than yours, for they see 
a hundred swords gleaming in the sun upon 
the road. Surely it is not armed thus that 
friends would come to seek shelter for the 
night!” 

And as he spoke, an arrow glanced by their 
little window and broke itself against the 
stone wall of the turret. 

Father Raffaello raised his arm solemnly. 

“Bow thy head, Conrad of Montferrat,” he 
said, “for great is thy shame. Thou art not 
only a coward but a traitor also, than which 


14 Proverb Stories of Many Lands 

there is nothing more despicable. Lock him 
in his chamber, loyal Savoyards, and place a 
guard to watch him. The honor and safety 
of Count Aimo’s possessions are more secure 
in the hands of a little child and an old priest 
than in those of his treacherous brother-in- 
law.” 

So Father Raffaello, with the help of 
Amedee, directed the defense of the castle, 
which was now under siege. The deep moat 
surrounding their tiny island, and the im¬ 
pregnable structure in which they lived, were 
their chief protections. But Count Aimo had 
taken with him twenty picked retainers, and 
so, few men were left to fight off the assaults 
of the enemy. The defenders could never have 
launched an attack themselves, had not Amedee 
undertaken to secure help and supplies by 
means of a perilous enterprise. 

In the dead of night, with only one faithful 
old servant, the child slipped into a small boat, 
on the lake side of the castle, and let himself 
be paddled carefully, noiselessly across the dark 
waters to the little village of Villeneuve, at the 
upper angle of the lake. Here lived many 


The Warrior of the Green Twig 15 

gallant Savoyards; and here, also, was stationed 
a flotilla of galleys, formidable sea-craft in 
those ancient times. 

The sight of the golden-haired boy, come to 
acquaint them of the plight of the beleaguered 
castle, roused the men to instant action, and 
soon the lake hummed with the rhythmical 
splash of a hundred oars. And when the tur¬ 
rets were once more filled with armed and 
trained fighters, the men of Chieri were sorely 
chagrined. 

The captain of the galleys, who had fought 
with Count Aimo in many battles, despatched a 
messenger at once to overtake his liege and 
make known to him the danger threatening his 
home. And since Count Aimo’s grave illness 
had greatly retarded his progress, the messen¬ 
ger came upon him after only three days’ hard 
riding. 

Without a moment’s hesitation, the count 
wheeled his steed about and commanded his 
men to travel with all possible haste back to the 
castle. He himself rode as fast as he could, but 
it was several days before he reached home. 
The brave Savoyards had so greatly reduced 


16 Proverb Stories of Many Lands 

the ranks of their Chieri assailants, however, 
that when the latter beheld a fresh detachment 
advancing to attack them from the rear, they 
fled precipitately. 

You can readily imagine the relief and satis¬ 
faction of Count Aimo, whose anxiety upon his 
homeward journey had been so great; and the 
joy and pride of the inmates of the castle, also, 
for they had vanquished a foe that outnum¬ 
bered them many times over. 

And when the good count heard how bravely 
Amedee had acquitted himself, and how natur¬ 
ally he had stepped into the place of leader, 
when the treachery of Conrad was discovered, 
it is small wonder that the tears of exultation 
stood in his eyes, for he knew his son was 
worthy of his illustrious lineage. 

“Thou hast learned a noble lesson, my 
Amedee/’ he. said. “Now I need worry for 
thee no longer. He who has a brave heart is 
prepared for life’s struggles.” 

And Father Raffaello answered for the child, 
and his words were words of wisdom: 

“Our little Amadeus has found that a brave 


The Warrior of the Green Twig 17 

heart is born in the time of need, and the hour 
of danger is the hour of courage.” 

As for Conrad of Montferrat, though the 
lovely Clementine pleaded for leniency toward 
him, the chronicles show that he was impris¬ 
oned in the deep dungeon for many months, 
and was then sent home, disgraced and re¬ 
pentant.: 

It is a sad fact that Count Aimo died in the 
early winter, for his fast-failing strength had 
prevented his attempting again the pilgrimage 
to Rome. So Amedee became nominal ruler 
at the tender age of nine years, with the good 
old priest as his adviser and guide. 

And when he was grown, and proclaimed 
Amadeus the Sixth of Savoy, he led his valiant 
followers through many glorious battles, and 
conquered lands and peoples far and near. 
Naturally enough, the first of his conquests 
was that of Chieri, in the year 1347; and soon 
after, he subdued Savigliano. He also became 
ruler of Gex and Faussigny, and later led a 
crusade against the Turks and delivered Galli¬ 
poli from their cruel yoke. So you see, he was 


18 Proverb Stories of Many Lands 

really a very great hero—in fact, the greatest 
in the history of Savoy. 

He was called “Amadeus the Green Knight,” 
for green was his favorite color at tournaments, 
and was chosen by him in memory of the taunts 
of his cousins when he was a child, for he 
never forgot that he had been nicknamed the 
Warrior of the Green Twig. In like manner, 
he chose for his motto, to be embroidered on 
his standards, the words of Father Raffaello, 
which have been passed down through the cen¬ 
turies and become a popular proverb to this very 
day: 

The hour of danger is the hour of courage. 


THE PRINCESS AND THE WORM 



THE PRINCESS AND THE WORM 


S O many fantastic things have been said and 
written about Le'i-tsu, that one might 
really suppose she was never a human being at 
all, but rather one of that group of strange 
pagan gods and goddesses held in reverence by 
the Chinese. The great antiquity of her his¬ 
tory (for she was born about 2690 b. c.) has 
given ample occasion for historians, of every 
generation since, to add to the list of her ac¬ 
complishments and achievements, until she has 
become, in their accounts, a superhuman being, 
who never tasted life’s mingled pleasures and 
sorrows. 

But some very ancient Chinese records con¬ 
vince me that Lei-tsu was just as human as 
you and I, and had so sensitive a nature that 
she felt joy and pain very keenly indeed. Now, 
there is no reason why this should detract from 
the esteem in which she is held by her country¬ 
men, for the blessing she conferred on her 
people deserves their gratitude and praise for- 

21 


22 Proverb Stories of Many Lands 

ever, so I can be making no mistake in telling 
her story as she really lived it, and leaving the 
fanciful legends attaching to her name for the 
poets of her native land to sing. 

The year 2690 b.c. was very near the dawn 
of history. Not that human beings had only 
recently appeared upon the earth—for we be¬ 
lieve they had existed for a long time before— 
but, rather, that they were just raising them¬ 
selves above a state of barbarism and were dis¬ 
covering the things which have given Man his 
supremacy over the other creatures of the globe. 

The Chinese lived very primitively, at the 
time of which I write. They built themselves 
huts from the boughs of trees, and covered their 
bodies with the skins of animals; but from Sui- 
jon, one of their first emperors, they had 
learned the use of fire; under Fu-hi they had 
become huntsmen and shepherds; and under 
the Emperor Shon-nung they had been taught 
to sow and reap crops. 

The title of Le'i-tsu’s father was Yu-ch’ong- 
ki, which means in Chinese that he was the 
holder of the fief of Ch’ong-ki, a fertile and 
pleasant district in the province now known as 


The Princess and the Worm 23 

Kan-su. So Yu-ch’ong-ki was really a noble¬ 
man, in the primitive sense of the word, the 
ruler of wide lands, and he owed allegiance to 
none but the emperor of all China. It had long 
been a grief to this powerful man that he was 
growing old and had not been blessed with a 
child. When, therefore, a daughter was born 
to the aging nobleman and his soft-voiced little 
wife, it was an occasion for great rejoicing in 
Ch’ong-ki. 

This small daughter was named Lei-tsu, and 
she was treated with the deference and respect 
befitting the princess of a noble house. And 
when the sun shone in the green valley which 
was her home, she was as happy and light¬ 
hearted a little princess as you might hope to 
find anywhere, at any time. For she was a true 
child of nature, and danced over the sweet¬ 
smelling fields and under the rich fruit-trees, 
dressed in her soft white lambskins, just as a 
bird or butterfly might flit, and just as care-free 
as they, too. But when the rain fell, or the 
white snow in winter, Lei-tsu stayed in her 
father’s hut and wept all the day long, for there 
was nothing for her to do but sit in the doorway 


24 Proverb Stories of Many Lands 

and watch the gray clouds chase one another 
across the sad sky. 

One day, when the wind blew sharp and one 
could smell the approaching frost in the air, 
Lei-tsu, who must have been nearly eight years 
old at that time, came home to the hut in the 
evening, carrying something very carefully in 
her hands. 

“What does Lei-tsu bring into the house ?” 
asked Shan-ir, who swept the earthen floor with 
a bundle of twigs and cooked the meals for 
Yu-ch’ong-ki and his family. 

“It is a little bird, Shan-ir,” answered Lei- 
tsu. “His wing hangs helpless at his side, so 
that he cannot fly away from the big sue” 
In Chinese, sue , you must know, means snow, 
“Lei-tsu will keep the bird near the pleasant 
fire until the sun shines warm again.” 

“But Lei-tsu must not bring the bird into the 
house,” said Shan-ir, who was not always 
sweet-tempered, it seems., “There is no room 
for such things here.” 

“Lei-tsu is the daughter of Yu-ch’ong-ki,” 
the little princess reminded Shan-ir; then she 
came and stroked the old woman’s cheek, “Be- 


The Princess and the Worm 25 

sides, I will build him a tiny house of his very 
own, so he won't be in the way." 

Shan-ir relented of course; and Lei-tsu had 
something to take care of and love during the 
winter. She wove for her bird a little basket, 
or cage, of slender rushes, and fed him with 
seeds that grew wild in the woods. And be¬ 
cause he was warm and contented, the bird sang 
beautifully, so that Lei-tsu forgot to be sad, 
and the melting of the snow in the spring 
seemed to come very quickly that year. Per¬ 
haps her bird was the first ever kept in cap¬ 
tivity ; the poets say so, at least; but the custom 
of keeping birds for pets became very popular 
indeed, and the lowliest home in China to-day 
has its wicker cage with song-birds. 

During the next summer Lei-tsu was happier 
than ever, and made friends with the baby 
lambs in her father's flocks, and the rabbits that 
lived near the edge of the wood's, and even 
the old tortoise who blinked at her from his 
muddy bed in the pond. 

And one evening she came home to the hut, 
carrying some leaves in one hand, and dragging 
a long branch behind her with the other. 


26 Proverb Stories of Many Lands 

“What does Lei-tsu bring into the house ?” 
asked Shan-ir, who was very cross that day. 

“Only a little worm, good Shan-ir,” 
answered Lei-tsu. “He makes so little noise 
chewing the green leaves, that surely he will 
disturb no one.” 

“But worms are horrid crawling things,” 
cried Shan-ir in real alarm, “and sometimes 
they bite people! Surely, Lei-tsu must not 
bring such a thing into the house!” 

“Lei-tsu is the daughter of Yu-ch’ong-ki,” 
the child warned her. “This worm is too busy, 
eating the leaves, to care to bite Shan-ir. Lei- 
tsu has watched him eat and eat till he has 
grown long and fat and very handsome. Lei- 
tsu wishes to have him near, so that she may 
watch him grow into a great dragon.” 

Shan-ir grumbled a good deal as she bent 
over the smoky fire, and perhaps the chunk of 
meat she was roasting was less carefully pre¬ 
pared that evening than usually, but the gray 
worm and the bunch of leaves were brought 
into the hut notwithstanding, and the worm 
throve there prodigiously. Lei-tsu found that 


The Princess and the Worm 27 

he refused to eat the leaves of any but the mul¬ 
berry tree. 

The worm did not grow into a dragon, but 
something quite as marvelous happened to him 
in time; for he ceased being a worm . When 
he had spent about two weeks in the hut, and 
had consumed numberless green mulberry 
leaves he lost his appetite, and clung quietly to a 
bare twig. At last he began to move his head 
back and forth, and two very fine silk threads 
circled about him many times and made him a 
prisoner., 

Lei-tsu observed all this with wonder. But 
when her worm had completely disappeared 
from view, and not the faintest motion was to 
be seen in his golden home, she took in her hand 
the cell, or cocoon, he had built with so much 
pains and began unraveling it. It was not that 
she meant to be destructive; she only wanted to 
see again the small creature she had made her 
pet. She unwound the slim double thread, turn 
after turn, and because it was so beautiful and 
soft, she gathered it up and twined it around 
a piece of wood. 


28 Proverb Stories of Many Lands 

But when her silk thread broke off and she 
tore apart the hard, shell-like interior of the 
cocoon, her gray friend was not there; a mo¬ 
tionless, mummified pupa was all she saw. 
Then Lei-tsu wept,—wept long and rather 
noisily, I am afraid,—and before the little prin¬ 
cess would be comforted Shan-ir had to promise 
that in the future all animals brought to the hut 
would be permitted to remain. 

Now, it happened about this time that Hien- 
yuan, a young prince who was the holder of a 
fief not far away, decided that some measure 
must be taken to save China from her many 
enemies; for the emperor was growing old and 
feeble, and had allowed dangerous foreign 
tribes to enter his domain. So Hien-yuan came 
to Yu-ch’ong-ki to ask for his support. 

Lei-tsu sat at her father’s knee, and listened 
to the old man’s earnest discourse with the 
young prince. And when she heard her father 
promise Hien-yuan to follow him to battle, with 
all his able-bodied subjects, she jumped up in 
glee., 

“May Lei-tsu come too?” she asked eagerly. 


The Princess and the Worm 29 

“Lei-tsu will help to capture the wicked Ch’i-yu, 
whom you go to fight!” 

Hien-yuan smiled. He was a kind young 
man, despite the fact that he was an intrepid 
warrior, 

“Le’i-tsu will have to remain safely at home,” 
he said. “But she can help us capture the 
wicked Ch’i-yu, nevertheless. ,, 

“How?” asked Lei-tsu. 

“If you will think hard enough, you will find 
the means,” answered Hien-yuan. 

Then he went away. And when Yu-ch’ong- 
ki had gathered about him all the strong men 
over whom he ruled, he led them off to fight. 
The war which followed lasted many years, and 
was most bloody and fierce. 

Through those long years, Lei-tsu stayed in 
the green valley and was very sad. She thought 
and thought, day after day, how she might help 
the brave men who were giving their lives in 
defense of China, and most often she thought 
of Hien-yuan, and determined that she must 
find a way. : 

Such persistent effort is almost certain to 


30 Proverb Stories of Many Lands 

lead somewhere, and one day, quite suddenly, an 
idea dawned in Lei-tsu’s brain. Shan-ir ob¬ 
served how the eyes of the princess sparkled, 
and what a happy little laugh escaped her lips. 
But before Shan-ir could voice her surprise, 
Lei-tsu had run out of the hut and was far 
across the fields., 

And from that hour, Lei-tsu was the busiest 
little person in all China. Before nightfall she 
had collected hundreds of small gray worms 
from the mulberry trees of the valley, and had 
installed them, with many armfuls of green 
leaves, in a corner of the hut. And the next 
day she brought more, and still more; so that 
the sound of the worms’ continual chewing 
filled the hut. Shan-ir did not dare to protest, 
jthis time, for Lei-tsu was so earnest about her 
work. And well she might be; for she had dis¬ 
covered the hidden wealth of China., 

When the biting winds of autumn descended 
on the valley, Lei-tsu sat twisting a long rope of 
pure silk, and the poets say it was as thick 
around as her wrist. Such a thing had never 
been known before. And when it was finished. 


The Princess and the Worm 31 

she called an old subject of her father’s, helped 
him gather the trailing rope upon his horse, and 
bade him carry it to the seat of war, and present 
it in her name to the prince Hien-yiian. 

When at last Ch’i-yu, the wicked traitor, was 
overpowered and captured, Hien-yiian and his 
men secured him with this very rope. The 
story goes that they fastened him to the limb 
of a great tree as he sat on his horse, and that 
the horse, taking fright, suddenly started from 
under him, causing Ch’i-yu to be hanged with 
the silken rope. Whether or not that was the 
first time such means of punishment was em¬ 
ployed, the ancient records fail to state, but it 
seems very likely. 

At all events, Lei-tsu, though throughout the 
war she had remained in the valley which was 
her home, had produced the means of destroy¬ 
ing Ch’i-yu, and it is small wonder that all 
China revered her from that time on.. 

The people honored Hien-yiian, also, for de¬ 
livering them from the foreign tribes, and they 
made him Emperor of China, giving him the 
new name of Huang-ti. And as a ruler in times 


32 Proverb Stories of Many Lands 

of peace Huang-ti distinguished himself even 
more than he had in war. For he organized a 
system of government, and under him China 
became a powerful nation. 

But one of the first things the Emperor 
Huang-ti did—and one of the most important, 
I think—was to make Lei-tsu his wife; and so 
she became Empress of China. 

During the time which elapsed between the 
overthrow of Ch’i-yu and the marriage of the 
young emperor, however, Lei-tsu had not been 
idle. For she had constructed with her own 
hands, out of bars of wood, bamboo stems, and 
supple rushes, a crude loom, on which she wove 
the first silk cloth ever produced. Hers must 
have been a wonderful mind indeed, to conceive 
of laying hundreds of threads in parallel lines 
to form what, in modern weaving, is called the 
“warp” and then, by drawing forward each 
alternate thread, permit a shuttle carrying the 
cross-wise thread (now called the “weft”) to 
pass through horizontally, over one and under 
the other of the warp threads, to weave a close 
and compact web. Through every age and in 


The Princess and the Worm 33 

every land honor should be paid Lei-tsu, for she 
performed a great service for all mankind. 

Incidentally, with her toil and patience, she 
produced a silken gown for her own fair person 
and in this very gown she was wedded to the 
Emperor Huang-ti., 

The bamboo tablets on which the most 
ancient of Chinese records are written tell us 
that Le’i-tsu’s happy discovery spread with 
great rapidity through all China, and that even 
during her lifetime the royal family and all the 
noblemen, or mandarins, were clothed in silk. 
They even say that some of this silk was dyed 
in different colors. 

Because of all this, Lei-tsu came to be known 
as 'The Lady of Si-ling/’ si meaning silk in 
Chinese. And she is worshiped to-day as the 
goddess of the silkworm, and thousands of peo¬ 
ple pray to her, each year, that the silk crop may 
prosper. 

To keep in remembrance the simple means 
and the great results of the labor of Le'i-tsu, a 
wise man of China evolved a proverb, and when 
the Chinese people hear it, their thoughts fly 


34 Proverb Stories of Many Lands 

back over three and a half thousand years, and 
they think of the little Empress of China, “The 
Lady of Si-ling.” The proverb is this: 

Patience and a mulberry leaf will make a 
silk gown . 


THE CAKE-VENDER OF MOSCOW 


THE CAKE-VENDER OF MOSCOW 


H E stood on a busy corner of the market¬ 
place of Moscow—the Great Posad, as it 
was called. A wooden tray, or shelf, was slung 
with a leather thong about his neck, and his 
high-pitched, childish voice sang out lustily to 
draw the attention of passers-by to the little 
anise cakes he had for sale. His occupation 
was not a particularly pleasant one, for the hot 
rays of the sun in summer and the chilling 
blasts of the long winter beat mercilessly on the 
slender child. Nor was it a particularly profit¬ 
able occupation, for the crowds hurrying by or 
loitering about in groups hardly noticed an ob¬ 
ject so common on the streets of Moscow as a 
child vender. Moreover, the poor of that city 
have always been especially poor, and, to them, 
cakes—even the coarse ones baked by little 
Alexander's mother—were luxuries indulged 
in only on feast-days, when the slowly gathered 
contents of the slim money-bags were squan- 


38 Proverb Stories of Many Lands 

dered recklessly, with no thought of the drudg¬ 
ery which would begin anew on the morrow. 

Yet the child, Alexander Danilovich Men- 
shikoff, never rebelled against the unpleasant¬ 
ness of his daily lot, for peddling on the streets 
was the customary employment of the children 
of poor families, and must be borne, along with 
the hunger and cold and raggedness that the 
poverty-stricken have suffered in all lands and 
ages. Every year many of these unfortunate 
children succumbed from exposure to the rigor¬ 
ous weather; only the sturdiest survived to 
carry the unhappy custom from generation to 
generation. 

Alexander’s father was an illiterate, good- 
natured man, who helped a farmer in a near-by 
village with his plowing in the spring and his 
harvesting in the autumn, and at other seasons 
went from door to door in the poorer sections 
of Moscow as a tinker, mending, for a few 
copecks, the copper kettles and pitchers of the 
housewives. He had never known a better 
manner of living, and was, therefore, quite 
content, with no ambitions whatever. Not so 


The Cake-Vender of Moscow 39 

his good wife, who, before her marriage, had 
been a scullery-maid in the home of a wealthy 
merchant and thus had seen with her own eyes 
that some people actually live all their lives in 
comfort and plenty. Many a tale did she tell to 
her children and neighbors, and invariably 
ended: 

“And my master and his family changed 
their linen every week; and in the summer they 
bathed in basins in the house. Surely the 
nobility could not have it grander, nor even the 
children of the czar!” 

Alexander’s little brothers and sisters would 
sit speechless and wide-eyed, whenever their 
mother described at length the splendors she 
had seen, but Alexander’s dark eyes would 
sparkle, and once he told them: 

“When I am a rich man and live in a grand 
mansion, I shall throw copecks to the children 
in the streets, so that they may buy anise cakes 
and honey, and carry a bit to the cathedral 
when they go to worship.” 

All this, you must know, was long, long ago, 
in the year 1684. Alexander was twelve years 


40 Proverb Stories of Many Lands 

old at that time, and had been peddling his lit¬ 
tle cakes for four years in the market of Mos¬ 
cow—the Great Posad. 

One day, when the first heavy snow of winter 
was falling, the boy wandered far from his 
accustomed corner, for he knew he must move 
about or freeze to death. Finally, he reached 
the stone walls of the Kremlin, and, entering, 
stationed himself near the entrance of the 
Uspensky Cathedral. 

"Who will buy sweet anise cakes ?” he cried. 
"Anise cakes made of finely ground flour and 
flavored with fragrant seeds! Who will buy?” 

A young man came out of the church. As 
the cold wind struck him, he gathered his 
cloak more closely about him, and peered im¬ 
patiently up and down the street; there was no 
one in sight but the little cake-vender, stamping 
his feet and blowing on his blue fingers, and 
the gentleman accosted him abruptly: 

"Boy, can you tell me whether my servant is 
anywhere about? I left him here an hour ago, 
when I went in to worship, and his orders were 
to remain upon this very spot until I return.” 

The young man’s accent was strange, and 


The Cake-Vender of Moscow 41 

singularly sweet, the boy thought, for the thick, 
guttural syllables of the Russian language fell 
clearer and more musically from his tongue 
than Alexander had ever heard them spoken 
before. 

“I have seen no one standing here, sir,” he 
answered. “But then, I myself just stopped 
here a moment ago. I will see whether your 
servant is waiting around the corner.” 

And he ran quickly to look. But the snow 
pelted sharply down and the drifts were deep, 
and almost every one had sought the shelter of 
his home, so that the streets were quite deserted. 
Alexander came back unsuccessful from his 
search, 

“I have circled all about the church, sir,” he 
said, “but there is no one to be seen. The storm 
is growing more bitter every moment, and I am 
going home, for there is no hope of selling anise 
cakes to-day.” 

“I cannot make my way without my servant,” 
said the gentleman; “I must hold my wrap be¬ 
fore my face, for the wind stings like a whip. 
Do you think you can lead me, my boy? I will 
pay you well if we reach my home in safety.” 


42 Proverb Stories of Many Lands 

“Oh, yes, sir!” cried the boy, eagerly; “and 
then perhaps the good sir will buy some of my 
sweet cakes for his supper.” 

So Alexander, holding the leather cover of 
his tray firmly together with one hand, to pro¬ 
tect his precious cakes from the weather, and 
grasping a fold of the stranger’s cloak with the 
other hand, led the gentleman through the 
driving snow-storm to the west end of the 
boulevard of Prechistenka, as he had been 
directed. They halted before a large frame 
house (at that time nearly all houses in Russia 
were built of wood), set well back from the 
street in a spacious inclosure. When the door 
was opened, the young man drew the child with 
him into the great hall. 

“You must warm yourself before you ven¬ 
ture farther,” he said; “and besides, I promised 
you should have some money.” He drew a 
whole handful of copecks from his purse and 
dropped them into the pocket of the child’s 
sheepskin coat. 

Alexander’s big brown eyes gleamed. He 
had never before taken home so many coins for 
a day’s toil, and he knew how his mother and 


.. . ... 



Alexander led him through the snow-storm. 





















































































































The Cake-Vender of Moscow 43 

father would gloat over this money. But his 
honest little heart prompted him, and, drawing 
aside the leather cover of his tray, he took his 
cakes, one after the other, and laid them on the 
table. Then, shyly looking about him at the 
great, handsome hall, he edged his way toward 
the door. 

“Not so fast, my boy,” said the young man, 
stopping him. “You are an honest little fellow, 
and one who thinks and acts quickly. Honesty 
and alertness are qualities met with none too 
often in this country, and I, who come from 
far, value them highly. If you would care to 
enter my service, instead of peddling your little 
cakes on the streets, you shall be my page in 
place of the faithless rascal who left me to make 
my way home unattended this afternoon.” 

Alexander almost jumped with surprise and 
delight, for to him, a common little street 
urchin, this was a most startling offer. 

“Oh, I will come! I will come so gladly!” he 
cried. “If my father will only let me, I will 
come into your service, sir!” 

“Then bring your father to me to-morrow 
morning, and I will make the arrangements 


44 Proverb Stories of Many Lands 

with him. My name is Monsieur Lefort. 
What is your name?” 

“I am Alexander Danilovich Menshikoff, 
your servant,” and with a solemn little bow, the 
boy slipped out of the great door into the wild 
storm, and his heart leaped and danced with joy 
as he picked his way through the drifts to his 
humble home, the copecks jingling in his pocket 
as he went. 

This is how it came about that the little 
vender of anise cakes unfastened the tray from 
his shoulders for the last time, and entered a 
new and unusual environment. 

Monsieur Lefort was a Swiss by birth, edu¬ 
cated in the academy in Lausanne. His sharp 
wits and well-trained mind, and his eager desire 
to see the world, had led him through many 
lands, and had brought him at length to Mos¬ 
cow, at that time the capital of all the Russias. 
Here he later won the friendship of Peter, the 
young prince who was to become so important 
and powerful a ruler. Peter, while still a child, 
recognized that all the other countries of 
Europe had a more advanced civilization than 
Russia, and better organized governments, and 


The Cake-Vender of Moscow 45 

he gathered about him the ambitious and 
progressive ones of his countrymen, and many 
foreigners. Among the latter Lefort was the 
chief, and he contributed much to the child- 
prince’s education. 

The new little page who had come into his 
household interested Monsieur Lefort from the 
start. For a child of twelve he was very manly 
and independent, quick to think, and loyal to 
his master; and he had an amusing, picturesque 
way of saying things that others would have 
expressed in a most commonplace manner. He 
accompanied Monsieur Lefort everywhere, and 
that gentleman took pains in the long, dull win¬ 
ter months to teach him the rudiments of learn¬ 
ing, and the soft, musical inflections of the 
French language. 

But there was a shady side to Alexander’s 
life also, and this shady side was provided by 
Lefort’s other servants. Led by the head serv¬ 
ing-man, named Yuri, they took advantage of 
the child’s tender years and made the hours he 
spent in their company most miserable. It was 
not long before they found out that Alexander 
had been a common peddler, and that his par- 


46 Proverb Stories of Many Lands 

ents were very humble indeed, and they taunted 
and abused him, and sometimes struck him with 
their hard fists till tears of pain stood in his 
eyes. Every kindness and evidence of interest 
that their master showed his little page added 
to their resentment and jealousy, and Alexan¬ 
der suffered more and more at their hands. 
But the child never breathed a word of all this 
to Monsieur Lefort. 

But one day that gentleman happened to 
come into the great hall and discover his page 
crouching before the formidable figure of Yuri, 
who, with great relish, was administering blows 
and uttering a torrent of bitter words. 

“You dirty little imp!” Yuri was saying. 
“To stumble and scatter your bundle of wood 
on the stairs, as though your shoulders, which 
could carry your peddler’s shelf well enough, 
would break beneath this load! If the master 
knew that your father is a tinker, he would kick 
you out of the house, instead of teaching you 
book-learning, which you will always be too 
stupid and common to use!” 

Lefort took one step further into the room, 
and Yuri turned and saw him. The man 


The Cake-Vender of Moscow 47 

turned red. He could see that his master was 
displeased, but he tried to extricate himself 
from this embarrassing situation, and with the 
greatest possible credit to himself. 

“I am teaching your new servant his duties 
in the household,” he stammered; “he has had 
no training whatever, for all he knows is how 
to sell cakes to camel-drivers upon the streets.” 

“To fling you out of my house would be a 
treatment too gentle and easily forgotten,” said 
the master; “you shall go untouched, but I will 
see to it that you find no employment in the 
homes of any of the adherents of Prince Peter.” 

Then he raised the child from the floor and 
took him into his own chamber. 

“How long has that wretch been abusing 
you?” he asked. 

“Ever since I came to you, sir,” answered 
Alexander. 

“Then why have you told me nothing of it?” 

“Because what Yuri has said of me is true. I 
have been a common street boy, and my father 
is only a tinker. I have not deceived you about 
it; you knew it all the while, and you have been 
so wonderfully good to me, sir. But I could n’t 


48 Proverb Stories of Many Lands 

stop Yuri from talking about it: I could n’t sew 
buttons on his mouth.” 

It was a quaint expression and Monsieur 
Lefort smiled involuntarily. 

“Ah, we all have our enemies!” he said. 
“And that is the worst thing about them: we 
cannot sew buttons on their mouths.” 

But from the time of Yuri’s dismissal, none 
of the servants dared touch the little page of 
whom the master was so very fond. 

A few years after this, Prince Peter, who 
occasionally visited his friend Lefort, was at¬ 
tracted by the intelligence and alertness of the 
latter’s page, and, from that time on, whenever 
he met the Swiss gentleman, he demanded at 
once to see Alexander. There is no doubt that 
young Peter, who was growing up in a gloomy 
palace, surrounded by intriguing ministers and 
thwarted by an elder stepsister who aspired to 
steal all his power from him, was never so 
happy as when in the company of the kindly 
Lefort, who recognized the unusual mental 
strength and courage of the prince. And it is 
small wonder that, denied the company of 
young people of his own years, he felt drawn 


The Cake-Vender of Moscow 49 

to his friend’s page, for he and Alexander 
were nearly the same age. Peter was simple 
and democratic to a degree most rare in those 
times and in that land, and this fact helped win 
for him in later ages the surname “the Great.” 
His sympathy for young MenshikofF led to his 
making the boy his own page and sharing with 
him his ambitions and progressive plans. 

When Peter actually ascended the throne, in 
the year 1696, Alexander, the former cake- 
vender, could be called his serving-man no 
longer, but rather his supporter and coopera¬ 
tor. And for many years thereafter Men- 
shikoff’s life was an ever-growing triumph. 
He accompanied the czar to battle, and proved 
himself an able warrior. He traveled with 
Peter to Holland and England and Vienna, and 
brought back learning and culture such as Rus¬ 
sia had never known before. For his gallantry 
in battle he was made a general, at the age of 
thirty-two, and he was later created a prince 
of the Holy Roman Empire, upon the czar’s 
request. Naturally, he was very rich, for Peter 
heaped favor after favor on him. He lived in 
a grand mansion, and, I am glad to say, he ful- 


50 Proverb Stories of Many Lands 

filled the promise of his childhood, giving freely 
to the poor, especially to the children of his old 
neighborhood. 

You can see what a very important man 
Menshikoff was. His influence over the czar 
was a good one, and there is every reason to 
believe that he restrained that monarch from 
many harsh acts; for Peter was very cruel, and 
accomplished his radical reforms by force. 

But now comes the unhappy end of the story. 
Every great man has his enemies, and Men- 
shikofif, who had risen so high and from so low 
a level, was envied and hated by a score of men 
who always considered themselves his superiors 
because of their noble lineage. When Peter 
died, they lost no time in showing this man, who 
had been a power behind the throne, that his 
hour of glory was over. They began to repeat 
openly the bitter slanders that their jealousy 
invented. They accused him of many misdeeds 
of which he was innocent, and soon spread a 
rumor that he had stolen from the emperor's 
treasury the wealth which Peter had really be¬ 
stowed upon his favorite. 

For a while Alexander held these unscrupu- 


The Cake-Vender of Moscow 51 

lous men at bay, for he succeeded in placing 
Peter’s widow, Catherine, upon the throne, and 
held the reins of empire himself. But when, 
after two years, Catherine also died, his 
enemies soon stripped him of his exalted posi¬ 
tion and even of his wealth. He suffered one 
humiliation after another, and at last was ban¬ 
ished to Siberia, together with his wife and 
three children* 

In years, Menshikoff was still in the prime of 
life, but his spirit was broken, and his stalwart 
body wasted with it. The journey into tfye 
wilds of Siberia was at that time fraught with 
far greater dangers than now, and Men- 
shikoff’s wife and one daughter succumbed on 
the way. Bowed with grief and robbed of his 
dignity, the favorite of Peter the Great reached 
his destination, but could endure no longer, and 
died in the year 1729. 

His friend Lefort, who was an old, old man 
by this time, but who still possessed some influ¬ 
ence at court, made every effort to restore the 
respect and honor the memory of Menshikoff 
deserved, and at length succeeded in securing 
the release of the exile’s two remaining chil- 


52 Proverb Stories of Many Lands 

dren, who returned to Moscow and, later, re¬ 
covered a part of their father’s riches. 

Lefort protected and loved these children, 
and often repeated to them the simple phrase 
used by his little page Alexander, a great many 
years before. So exactly did that phrase ex¬ 
press the cause of Menshikofif’s downfall, that 
Lefort had it engraved beneath a portrait of 
the one-time cake-vender, and so it has been 
preserved to the present time. 

If you are ever as lucky as I was, and see this 
old picture of Alexander Danilovich Men- 
shikoff, you will find beneath it these words— 
which became a proverb in the Russian 
language: 

You cannot sew buttons on your neighbor's 
moutK 


CORNELIA OF THE SEVEN HILLS 















CORNELIA OF THE SEVEN HILLS 


T HE city of Rome was decked as it had 
never been decked before; banners waved 
from its buildings and garlands hung on the 
walls, and fragrant rose-petals lay strewn along 
the triumphal path. Old and young,—man, 
woman, and child,—dressed in their gayest, 
brightest robes, had been up since break of day, 
and had sought every point of vantage from 
which they might witness the most joyous sight 
of their lives, and join in the ecstasy of the 
occasion. Even the sun lent his most brilliant 
splendor, and the breeze from the north lifted 
the banners, so that they fluttered out against 
the blue sky. 

The City-on-Seven-Hills, the city of Rome, 
was very young in those days, and the gems of 
architecture which were later to adorn her had 
not yet been built; nor were the effects of ex¬ 
travagance and wickedness, which ultimately 
ruined her, anywhere to be seen, for the year of 
55 


56 Proverb Stories of Many Lands 

which I write was 202 before the birth of our 
Lord, and the scene I am describing was the 
victorious return of Publius Cornelius Scipio 
after the battle of Zama and the conquest of 
Carthage. That battle and that conquest 
marked the end of the second Punic war, which 
had lasted for sixteen years, and which had cost 
untold moneys and thousands of brave Roman 
soldiers. It is small wonder that the entire 
population of the city, patrician and plebeian 
alike, welcomed the returning victors with 
transports of enthusiasm and joy.. 

In the portico of a handsome new mansion 
(one of the very first to be built in Rome of 
creamy-white travertin stone, and in the Greek 
style) a beautiful woman with a slim boy of ten 
at her side, and a fairy-like, golden haired girl 
of seven or eight leaning against her knee, 
eagerly watched the triumphal procession. The 
children were both a-flutter with excitement; 
and they marveled to see a tear upon their 
mother’s cheek, and hear a little catch in her 
voice as she watched the mighty hero, great 
Scipio, pass slowly on his splendid white horse 


Cornelia of the Seven Hills 57 

at the head of the procession, and pause to peer 
expectantly up between the white pillars of the 
portico to where they sat. Their mother waved 
her slim hand, and the people in the street 
shouted, and the procession moved along. 

“Why dost thou tremble, sweet mother ?” 
queried the boy. “Thou art grown quite pale!” 

So imperfectly can the child-heart grasp the 
emotions of its elders! For the man whom all 
Rome was honoring that day, the proud war¬ 
rior on the white horse, was their mother’s 
husband and their father, though to them he 
was a stranger, having been away at the wars 
so long. Their mother, the lovely ^Emilia, 
clasped them both to her heart then and kissed 
them many times. 

“Thy father comes back safe from the fear¬ 
ful battles,” she whispered. “May he never 
leave us again to go to war!” 

And then she dried her eyes and leaned for¬ 
ward to smile and bow her head to the gallant 
captains and ranks of soldiers who had fought 
in far-away Africa; for ^Emilia was a matron 
honored by all Rome, The children left her 


58 Proverb Stories of Many Lands 

side, and went to the balustrade, and tossed 
flowers down on the passing troops, and 
cheered them with their small, gay voices. 

After the soldiers came the treasures and 
booty captured from Carthage: the caskets of 
gold talents, the armor and swords and lances, 
the hundreds of beautiful horses, and, most 
wonderful of all, the trained war-elephants, 
such as the people of Rome had never seen be¬ 
fore. 

There followed in the procession the pris¬ 
oners of war and the slaves that were to be sold 
into bondage. That was a sight such as we to¬ 
day—thank God!—shall never see, but in old 
Rome the buying and selling of human beings 
was a custom which no one questioned, and 
which survived for hundreds of years. At the 
head of these abject, defeated ones, walked 
Syphax, who had been a mighty king, and who 
now passed with his head bowed, and his hands 
and ankles shackled with heavy chains. A few 
hundred prisoners clanked after him, and then 
came the slaves—black people from Libya. 
Most of these were tall and strong, scantily 


Cornelia of the Seven Hills 59 

dressed, their dark skins greased so that they 
glistened like bronze in the sun. At the end of 
the line, dragging along behind the others, 
trudged a negro woman leading a child by the 
hand. The child’s rather large head was set 
deep in her shoulders, and her poor little back 
was twisted into a pitiful hump. Some of the 
people in the street jeered: 

“If thou wert a boy, thou couldst learn to 
juggle, and perform in the market-place!” 

The slave-mother’s eyes blazed at the taunts, 
and she lifted the child in her arms and hast¬ 
ened to catch up with the procession. Tears 
rolled down the little one’s cheeks, and the peo¬ 
ple in the street laughed to see its grief.: Just 
then the child lifted her eyes, and the sob that 
was rising in her breast stopped half-way, and 
she stared with all her might. What she saw 
was the golden hair and lovely face of a little 
girl of about her own age, leaning over the 
balustrade of a beautiful white portico. And 
this fairy-like child—who alone, perhaps, in all 
that crowd, felt sympathy for the little slave— 
put her hand into her flower-basket, then, find- 


60 Proverb Stories of Many Lands 

ing it quite empty, took the pansy wreath from 
her head, kissed the rich petals, and dropped it 
over the balustrade. 

The slave-child clasped her mother’s neck 
and besought her to pick up the flowers from 
the ground. Feigning to stumble, the woman 
fell to her knee. The Roman soldier guarding 
the lines struck at her with his leather thong, 
and she scrambled to her feet; but in the hand 
of the child on her arm was pressed a wreath 
of purple and yellow flowers, warm with the 
kiss of Cornelia, the patrician fairy-child with 
the golden hair. 

The procession of triumph had passed from 
sight, and still Cornelia leaned against a pillar 
of the portico, and tears stood in her eyes. 

“Poor little slave-child 1” she whispered. 
“Poor little slave-child!” 

Publius Cornelius Scipio came home to his 
family in the late afternoon, after the cere¬ 
monies in the Forum, where he had been given 
the title of “Africanus” in recognition of his 
victory over Carthage, Rome’s most formidable 
enemy. ^Emilia and her two children welcomed 
him as befitted a hero. 


Cornelia of the Seven Hills 61 

“Of the celebration and triumph Rome has 
given me,” Scipio said, “this is the most joyous 
moment, the very climax of the whole!” 

He embraced his lovely wife and the son 
whom he had last seen as an infant, and the 
daughter whom he had never seen before. He 
was a generous man, and he had brought many 
rich gifts for y£milia. 

“The children shall choose their own gifts,” 
he said. “I am curious to know what my son 
and daughter desire to possess.” 

“I would, above all things,” said Publius the 
son, “that I may accompany you, my father, to 
the next Roman war.” 

“The fulfilment of thy wish is promised 
thee,” answered the great Scipio, “And what 
does my small Cornelia crave ?” 

“Your affection, Father,” she ventured, for 
knowing him for so short a time, how could she 
realize that she need not beg for this? 

“Thou art already in possession of my love,” 
said Scipio, smiling, and stroking her soft hair, 
“Name a gift more tangible.” 

Cornelia hesitated., 

“I should like a slave of my very own,” she 


62 Proverb Stories of Many Lands 

said shyly; “a particular slave, Father—the lit¬ 
tle hunchbacked girl that walked at the end of 
the triumph to-day.” 

“And for what reason can you want such a 
slave, if she is deformed, as you say? Surely, 
she can never labor as a stronger slave might.” 

“It is not for labor that I want her,” 
answered Cornelia. “It is that I may play with 
her all the games I now play alone; and then, 
she might sit beside me when I learn from the 
good Ennius. And I would teach her what I 
already know, for that would be of all pastimes 
the most delightful!” 

Truly, the desire to learn and the desire to 
teach are closely related, and many a child of to¬ 
day has conned her lessons over and over to her 
dolls, in much the same way that Cornelia, in 
a time long past, explained her sums and re¬ 
peated her exercises to the small black slave- 
child who became her companion! 

Though Scipio Africanus thought his daugh¬ 
ter’s request very odd indeed, a slave more or 
less was a trifling matter to a rich man in those 
days, and so he promised to buy the little hunch¬ 
back. Emilia, who understood her small 


Cornelia of the Seven Hills 63 

daughter and who had not been blind to 
Cornelia’s emotion that morning, in the portico, 
lifted her younger child on her lap. 

“I could use another handmaid, myself, now 
that thou art home, my Scipio,” she said; “a 
handmaid that might put her heart into her 
work, as well as her strength—such a one as the 
mother of this same slave child appeared to be.” 

“By all means, procure them both, then,” 
responded her husband. 

Cornelia looked up into her mother’s face, 
and her eyes sparkled. She had not dared to 
ask so much, herself, but ^Emilia’s kind heart 
had divined the child’s loving wish. 

This is how it came about that a weak and ill- 
formed slave girl and her grateful mother 
entered the household of Scipio Africanus, and 
became the most devoted slaves in that family’s 
retinue. 

At first, Rafifa, the slave-girl, rolled her large 
eyes and giggled behind her black hand when 
her small mistress attempted to teach her the 
Latin alphabet and the intricacies of four- 
times-two. But so earnest was the youthful 
teacher, and the pupil so determined to please, 


64 Proverb Stories of Many Lands 

that Raffa soon acquired a creditable fund of 
learning for her age. 

Scipio was one of the first Romans to appre¬ 
ciate and admire Greek learning and culture, 
and to his house he welcomed poets and philos¬ 
ophers, that he might enjoy their wisdom and 
their power of beautiful expression. And since 
the Romans did not forbid their wives and 
daughters, as the Greeks had done, to develop 
their minds and share equally with men in the 
riches of learning, Cornelia gained an excep¬ 
tional education from some of the greatest 
scholars of the age. And this is of some im¬ 
portance to us, even to-day; for, when she was 
grown, she volunteered as scribe, or clerk, to 
Ennius, one of the most inspired of early 
Roman poets. Ennius was a valued friend of 
Scipio’s and the most beloved of Cornelia’s 
teachers, and when his sight failed him, it was 
Cornelia who took down the words that fell 
from his lips. And thus it was that the frag¬ 
ments of his writings remaining to-day, were 
penned by the hand of Scipio’s daughter. 

Cornelia soon had another pupil to teach, for 
a second daughter was born to Scipio and his 


Cornelia of the Seven Hills 65 

wife, whom .Emilia did not live to rear. The 
care of this little sister, who was ten years her 
junior, was Cornelia's joy and most tenderly 
discharged duty. Her love of children and her 
genius for instructing and guiding them be¬ 
came her most striking characteristics, and, in 
the end, won for her lasting fame. 

To the modest little home of Ennius, Cornelia 
frequently went, accompanied either by Raff a 
or some other maid-servant, to read some newly 
translated Greek verse, or to take baskets of 
fruits and flasks of wine. And it was there 
that she met, one day, a handsome Roman cap¬ 
tain, Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus. Together 
they sat listening while the worthy scholar 
declaimed a stirring Greek epic which had re¬ 
cently found its way to Rome. Despite his 
interest in the beautifully told narrative, 
Tiberius could not keep his eyes from wander¬ 
ing to the lovely face of the patrician maiden 
sitting beside Ennius and to the fair hair with 
its ornament of pansies—for pansies were 
Cornelia's favorite flower. And though 
Cornelia gazed steadfastly into the face of her 
dear teacher, the color came and went in her 


66 Proverb Stories of Many Lands 

cheeks, for she was aware of the captain’s 
glance even though she did not see it. 

Strangely enough, Tiberius Gracchus and 
Cornelia chanced to visit the poet Ennius at the 
same hour many times after that. This is all 
the more extraordinary when we consider the 
Roman customs of those days. For then the 
father of an aristocratic maiden arranged the 
marriage of his daughter to a desirable youth 
of equal station, sometimes without a friend¬ 
ship or even an acquaintance existing between 
the young people. And this marriage was 
usually arranged when the maiden was sixteen 
or seventeen years of age. So, the chance of 
love between girl and man was slight indeed, in 
ancient Rome! 

Ennius, however, had been born among the 
far-off Calabrian mountains, and had spent his 
youth amid pastoral scenes, where a life more 
free and genial was possible. And it is to his 
belief in the beauty of love that we owe this 
most charming romance of early Roman times. 

Cornelia and Tiberius loved each other; and 
the magnitude of the obstacle that stood in their 
way, only increased their devotion. Scipio and 


Cornelia of the Seven Hills 67 

Tiberius were political enemies; for the 
Africanus was a leader of the aristocracy, and 
the Gracchus was a leader of the people. It 
would have been quite useless for the young 
man to ask Scipio for the hand of his daughter; 
both he and Cornelia knew that only too well. 
So they loved in secret for many years; no one 
—except old Ennius, and Raffa, who sometimes 
carried oral messages between the two—knew 
how tender was their feeling for each other. 

Cornelia, however, had begged her father 
not to give her in marriage to any man, since 
her duty was so clearly to him and to her young 
sister, and Scipio, unaware of the motive that 
prompted her, agreed gladly, for she was very 
dear and very necessary to him and he could 
not bear the thought of losing her. And so, 
many years passed, and Scipio became a fretful 
old man. Those were years of heartache for 
Cornelia.: Her duties in her father’s house 
were many; and that was well, for leisure to 
brood upon her love for Tiberius and her fears 
for him when he was away at war, might have 
crushed her spirit. 

It was then that Scipio’s enemies, perceiving 


68 Proverb Stories of Many Lands 

that he was growing weak, plotted to under¬ 
mine the great esteem in which he was still held 
in Rome. They invented a charge against him 
of misuse of public funds, and Scipio was too 
proud and too bitter over their accusations to 
show the official records that would have proved 
his innocence. He uttered no word in his own 
defense, and so permitted his name to be 
besmirched. The Romans were people of 
action, and it seemed as though a miserable fate 
awaited the man who had so long been their 
favorite* 

That was in the year 187 b. c., and it hap¬ 
pened that, in the annual elections of that year, 
Tiberius Gracchus was chosen tribune, or 
leader of the people. Cornelia, suffering with 
her father under the unjust accusations of his 
enemies, despatched Raffa to the home of the 
new tribune, to beseech him to use his influence 
to save her father. Raffa must have pleaded 
her master’s cause well (or else Tiberius 
heeded the promptings of his own heart) for, 
despite differences in politics, he succeeded with 
his oratory in lessening the harshness of public 
opinion; and Scipio was permitted to remove to 


Cornelia of the Seven Hills 69 

Liternium, where he bought a farm and lived 
in peace. 

Cornelia was always loyal to her father, and 
comforted him in his last years, sharing his joy 
in nature and tending with him the garden in 
which he took such pleasure. And as she was 
faithful to her father, so Tiberius was faithful 
to his love, and sent her each spring a nosegay 
of lovely pansies to assure her of his enduring 
devotion. Perhaps it was the message they car¬ 
ried that attached to these soft, velvety flowers 
a significance which survives even yet in the 
name of “heart's ease," as we sometimes call 
them. 

In 183 b. c., Scipio died, and was laid at rest 
near his farm in Liternium. It was through 
the efforts of the blind Ennius that Cornelia's 
kinsfolk arranged her marriage to Tiberius. 
So, after years of patient waiting, the beautiful 
love of these two was crowned with happiness. 

Cornelia, as you have doubtless heard, be¬ 
came the most beloved and admired of Roman 
matrons, and one of the greatest mothers of his¬ 
tory. Of her children, only three survived 
early childhood. To them and to her husband 


70 Proverb Stories of Many Lands 

she devoted all her time. Unfortunately, 
Tiberius Gracchus, who won great victories in 
Spain, and held high office at home, died be¬ 
fore his children were grown. Many offers of 
marriage were made to his lovely widow, who 
refused them all. So far had her fame spread, 
that the King of Egypt sent ambassadors to ask 
her to become his queen. 

“There can be no higher title than the one I 
bear,” Cornelia answered them; “for I have 
been the wife of Tiberius Gracchus, and after 
him no man can win my heart.” 

From that time on, she dedicated her life to 
her children, educating them herself, and ever 
urging them on to new endeavor. The story 
which we always connect with her name, and 
which you must have heard many times, is so 
beautiful that it will surely stand being repeated 
once more. A haughty Roman matron had 
been displaying her jewels to Cornelia and 
boasting about their worth. Cornelia called 
her children to her: 

“These are my jewels,” she said, “and their 
worth is beyond price!” 

As Cornelia, in her own life, had never neg- 


Cornelia of the Seven Hills 71 

lected the performance of her duties, it was 
the will to do that she encouraged most in her 
sons. 

“Toil does not come to help the idle,” she told 
them many times, and surely both Tiberius and 
Caius, her two sons, heeded well her counsel, 
for they became two of Rome’s most eminent 
tribunes! 

When Cornelia died, the people of Rome 
raised a monument by public subscription, on 
which was carved: Cornelia, the mother 
of the Gracchi. 

And that was not the only honor paid her. 
For, when, in the year 52 b. c., the senate 
house, or Curia, had to be rebuilt, the original 
structure having burned to the ground—the 
new edifice was called the Curia Cornelia. And 
in the stone of the base these words were en¬ 
graved : 

Toil does not come to help the idle . 






THE STORY OF ITUDU 
















THE STORY OF ITUDU 

L ITTLE ITUDU lived in the dim and 
misty past to which we can give no def¬ 
inite date, and the story of his life comes down 
to us only through legend—the dreamy legend 
of Japan—the country in which he lived. 

His was not a happy, care-free childhood, 
even according to Japanese standards, for 
Itudu could not see. He was not blind, but 
his eye-muscles had drawn his eyes together 
until he was able only to distinguish day from 
night, and to see a small portion of the bridge 
of his nose, and so he had very little advantage 
over a totally blind person. Unfit to join other 
children in the games and tumble-about that his 
little heart craved, and intimidated by their 
jeers and abuse, Itudu led a lonely life; and, 
as is generally the case with children who can¬ 
not play like others, and who are alone a great 
deal, Itudu became very thoughtful, and won¬ 
dered much about the big world he could not 
see. 

75 


76 Proverb Stories of Many Lands 

In olden times it was the custom for a son 
to follow the trade of his father, and in some 
lands this custom led to the separation of people 
into many groups, or castes, some of which 
were looked down upon by others. The power 
of caste, or class, is beginning to wane, even in 
the most remote and unprogressive nations, but 
it has been a very real and merciless force in the 
past, and the cause of much injustice and un¬ 
happiness. And it was another great handicap 
in the life of little Itudu. 

His parents, who were hard-working, good 
people, tried by the only means in their power 
to get help for Itudu. When he was very 
small, they carried him to the priest in their 
village, but as they had so few coins to offer the 
wise man, he gave them very little of his time 
and attention. He directed the mother and 
father to repeat special prayers to their an¬ 
cestors—prayers beseeching them to use their 
influence with the evil spirits, that the child's 
eyesight might be released. Or, he said, if the 
boy could be taken to the great temple of Kiyo- 
midzu-Dera, in the city of Kioto, and placed 


77 


The Story of Itudu 

before the holy shrine, the miraculous power of 
the great god Kwan-on might straighten his 
eyes and let him behold the glory of the god’s 
mighty image. 

These were the only words of hope the priest 
gave them, and the poor people found scant 
comfort in his advice, for Itudu’s father be¬ 
longed to the caste of carriers, the lowliest class 
of laboring men, who were forbidden to enter 
the innermost shrine of the holy place, and 
could worship only outside its walls. 

When Itudu reached the age of twelve years 
he was a tall, sturdy lad, who longed to add to 
the pitifully small family income by carrying 
burdens on his back along the great highway, 
as his father was doing. The few sen, or Jap¬ 
anese cents, that Itudu’s father earned by his 
arduous labor were scarcely enough to keep 
starvation from the door, and the boy realized 
that his daily ration could not keep pace with his 
growing appetite. So one day he begged his 
father to take him along and test his strength. 

“You will call to me, my father, or whistle, 
and I will follow you upon the road, bearing a 


78 Proverb Stories of Many Lands 

sack of rice on my shoulder, just as you do, and 
so we may be able to bring home the earnings 
of two men instead of one.” 

The father shook his head sadly. 

“I fear it can’t be done, Itudu,” he said, but 
when he saw the pained look on the boy’s face, 
he quickly added, “But there can be no harm in 
trying.” 

So the next day Itudu followed his father 
along the dusty road, carrying a heavy sack of 
rice to the big city of Kioto, but they lagged 
behind the other carriers, for the father had 
to lead the sightless boy over the narrow foot¬ 
bridges, and on the rocky mountain slopes Itudu 
groped his way slowly and stumbled often. A 
lump would rise in his throat when this hap¬ 
pened, but he would hurry on, and try to make 
up in the flat open country the time he had 
lost on the difficult mountain paths. 

But it was quite in vain. Tired and sad, 
father and son presented themselves late in the 
evening, the last ones in the long line, to be paid 
their wages for the day, and to hear the words 
they knew the foreman would utter: 

“The boy need not come to the rice-beating 


The Story of Itudu 79 

platform to-morrow; we have no work for 
him.” 

That night was a sorrowful one for Itudu; 
and had he been able to see the tears of his 
mother and father, his heart would have 
broken. Late into the night he lay on his straw 
mat without closing his pitiful squinted eyes, 
and the words of his father rang in his ears 
over and over again: 

“There is nothing left for you to do, my son, 
but to be a beggar, sitting at the gateway of the 
temple. The rich men, passing in to worship, 
will have pity on you and will drop coins into 
your hand.” 

Itudu writhed at the thought. He did not 
want to be a beggar and crouch beside the tem¬ 
ple gate. He was young and strong, and his 
heart wanted to be gay. 

And then he remembered what the priest had 
said, years before: 

“If the boy could stand before the holy shrine 
in the great temple . . .” 

Itudu sat up, and his heart beat fast. That 
very day, after he and his father had delivered 
their sacks of rice, in Kioto, his father had led 


80 Proverb Stories of Many Lands 

him to the temple, and had laid the boy’s hand 
on the wall that surrounded the inner shrine. 

Slipping into his clothes, Itudu crept out of 
the house into the night. He would try to find 
his way alone; he would return to the temple, 
and, despite the restrictions against his caste, 
he would seek some means of gaining entrance, 
so that he might stand before the mighty image 
of the god Kwan-on. His plan was a daring 
one, for the journey was long and the boy could 
not see. But though he lacked sight, Itudu’s 
other senses were very keen, as is generally 
the case with the blind, and it was with re¬ 
markable assurance that he traversed again the 
path he had trod a few hours before, when he 
followed in his father’s footsteps. 

Up the rocky mountain slopes climbed the 
child Itudu, and down again into the valley. 
The darkness of the night did not frighten him, 
and the shadows of the trees and jagged crags 
along the road had no terrors for him, 'for he 
saw them not. On and on he hurried, till at last 
he reached the open plain. 

And then an awe-inspiring thing happened. 


8i 


The Story of Itudu 

With a low, deep rumbling like majestic thun¬ 
der, the earth under his feet shook in a mighty 
convulsion. Itudu found himself lying on his 
face, clutching the ground, and listening to the 
wild beating of his heart. He knew almost at 
once what had happened, as this was not the 
first earthquake he had experienced. Living in 
a land where such upheavals are not infrequent, 
Itudu was not frightened for long, and soon he 
picked himself up and continued on his way, 
until at length he entered the temple and stood 
beside the wall about the shrine of Kwan-on. 

He passed his sensitive fingers up and down 
along the bricks as he searched for the gateway. 
Suddenly, very near the base of the wall, his 
hand struck some crumbled mortar and bits of 
stone, and, brushing these aside, he could pass 
his finger clear through to the other side. It 
was just a tiny crevice caused by the rocking 
of the ground in the earthquake, but it was the 
only loophole open to the carrier’s child. Fling¬ 
ing himself on the ground, Itudu turned and 
twisted his neck till he brought his eye exactly 
even with the little hole in the wall. And then 


82 Proverb Stories of Many Lands 

he tried, tried so hard—to see into the holy 
place. 

Just then the early morning sun, peeping over 
the hills in the distance, cast a shaft of light 
through the wooden lattice-work of the temple, 
and struck into flame the gold-covered image 
of the god Kwan-on. And this gleam of light 
passed before the eye of little Itudu, and he 
saw its splendor as it rested on the great god 
with eleven heads and a thousand hands. It 
was hardly more than a minute before the beam 
of sunlight moved, and left Kwan-on in the 
shadow of the shrine, but for that minute Itudu 
had seen , and the image of the mighty god was 
graven in his soul. Awed and dazed, the lad 
rose to his feet and peered about him. But 
the vision had passed, and he saw no more, for 
the strained muscles of his eyes had snapped 
back into their former position. 

“The god Kwan-on is great/’ he murmured; 
“ he has let me see the glory of his image.’* 

Then Itudu packed loose earth and dead 
leaves in a mound against the wall, covering the 
tiny hole so that it might not be discovered by 


The Story of Itudu 83 

the temple priests. And slowly he trudged back 
to the village where his father lived. 

It was nearly noon when he arrived there, 
and he found it a place of mourning, for nearly 
every house had been demolished in the earth¬ 
quake, the night before, and the people sat 
amid the ruins, or sought to raise some manner 
of shelter where their homes had stood. So 
often do earthquakes occur in Japan, that nearly 
all Japanese houses are constructed of supple 
bamboo and tough paper, and almost no build¬ 
ing is erected with the idea that it will stand 
very long. 

Itudu’s mother greeted him a little sharply 
when he appeared. 

“Where hast thou been, child ?” she asked. 

“I have needed thy strong arms to help me raise 
the fallen walls of our house, and I have called 
and searched for thee all the morning. ,, 

“I have been far away,” said Itudu, "and I 
was much frightened by the great trembling 
of the earth. But I will help you now, my 
mother.” 

So Itudu set to work with a will, and with his 


84 Proverb Stories of Many Lands 

mother’s assistance managed to reconstruct 
their modest dwelling. And, as they worked, 
the good woman noticed that every now and 
then the lad turned his face toward the sun and 
murmured under his breath. And the words he 
repeated thus to himself were: 

“One can see the heavens through a needle’s 
eye.” 

That night, when the father returned from 
his labor, Itudu greeted him with a smile. 

“I am content, now, to sit beside the temple 
gate and be a beggar,” he said. “But I will 
not stay here at the little temple in our village. 
I will beg at the temple of Kiyomidzu-Dera, in 
the big city, so that I may be near the image of 
the great Kwan-on, who could restore my sight 
to me if I might stand before him. I will come 
back to see you, my mother and my father, for 
the next feast-day.” 

The parents were loath to let the boy leave 
the protection of his home, but his heart seemed 
so set upon going that at length they consented. 
So the next day Itudu went again with his 
father along the dusty road to Kioto, and was 


The Story of Itudu 85 

left with a poor family there, who gave him 
food and lodging. And he sat at the temple 
gate day after day, and held out his hand for 
alms. 

But Itudu’s object was not so much to gather 
coins from the wealthy worshipers, as to be 
near enough to try his experiment again. And 
he was very persevering in this. Every morn¬ 
ing, before the city was awake, he made his 
way to the wall of the holy shrine, and, uncover¬ 
ing his little loophole, lay down with his eye 
placed at the opening, to await the sunrise, when 
the golden image would gleam in the light. And 
he saw it again and again, and each time a little 
better. He did not know that he was training 
his vision, but that is just what he was doing, 
in a way not very different from the treatment 
used by great medical men of a later age. When 
he had been doing this for several weeks, 
Itudu found that after he had seen the image 
and had risen from the ground he could see, 
for a few minutes, the lovely blue of the sky 
and the beauty of the country around him. And 
each day his sight stayed with him for a longer 


86 Proverb Stories of Many Lands 

time than the day before. And he gave thanks 
to the great god Kwan-on, and rejoiced. 

When the time arrived for him to return to 
his parents for the feast-day, he could see 
clearly with one eye, and hurried along the road, 
gazing at all the things his father had tried to 
describe to him. 

Surely I need not tell you of the joy of his 
good mother and father! Indeed, words would 
fail to express it. But I can tell you that Itudu 
never again sat at the temple gateway to beg 
for charity. He carried a sack of rice on his 
strong back, first in the long line of carriers, 
and he was proud and happy. He never gained 
the use of his other eye, but he saw so much 
that people said he knew every stone upon the 
road. 

All this happened so long ago that you might 
expect it would be quite forgotten. The temple 
of Kiyomidzu-Dera later burned down to the 
ground, but the image of the great god with 
eleven heads and a thousand hands was saved, 
and stands to this day in a new temple, and you 
can see it if you go to Kioto* The whole story 


The Story of Itudu 87 

of the life of Itudu is not remembered by 
many people, but throughout the length and 
breadth of the kingdom of Japan you often hear 
repeated the words that Itudu once uttered: 

One can see the heavens through a needle's 
eye. 



THE VOICE OF PIETRO IN THE 

CROWD 


THE VOICE OF PIETRO IN THE 
CROWD 


T HE people who passed regularly through 
the narrow, roughly paved street, and even 
some of those whose business carried them 
there less frequently, raised their heads as they 
walked by the old stone house, and peered ex¬ 
pectantly up at a particular window. And if 
the frame was empty, they glanced higher yet 
at the tiny garden on the roof, where green 
shrubs grew in wooden tubs and an awning 
kept out the hot sun. And they were rarely dis¬ 
appointed in finding, in one of these two places, 
the object of their interest. If you had lived in 
the beginning of the fourteenth century, in the 
city of Genoa, in Italy, you might have won¬ 
dered, as they did, why the lonely child with the 
large brown eyes was kept locked up in the 
home of his grandfather. 

Simone himself wondered many times; but 
when he questioned his grandfather, a frown 

appeared on the old man’s face. 

91 


92 Proverb Stories of Many Lands 

“It is because I love you, my little one,” his 
grandfather told him, “that I would keep you 
safe, as long as I may, from the cruel world out¬ 
side.” 

Simone dared not question further; and so he 
played, day after day, month after month, in 
the cold, handsome rooms, or up in his tiny 
garden on the housetop, and gazed wistfully 
down at the people in the narrow street, and 
listened to their noisy, happy voices. It was a 
hilly, winding street, and at the steepest parts a 
few steps were built of red brick. The 
hawkers would stop a moment to rest their 
heavy loads and wipe the perspiration from 
their swarthy faces; the old people paused and 
tried to straighten their bent and weary backs; 
only the children ran quickly up the incline, 
their cheeks glowing with the exertion, their 
laughter floating up on every breeze. They all 
glanced up at the little grandson of Guglielmo 
Boccanegra; and if the old gentleman was 
standing beside the child, they doffed their caps 
or made respectful courtesies, for he had been 
the capitano of the city, and though his enemies 
had wrested his power from him, the people 


The Voice of Pietro in the Crowd 93 

honored him still. Little Simone always waved 
his hand to the passers-by and smiled; and his 
smile was so winning, that those who saw it 
could never quite forget it. 

Simone Boccanegra was an orphan. He 
could not remember clearly what had happened 
to his parents, but a shudder would pass over 
him whenever one of the servants mentioned 
the scourge. In those early days the men of 
science were quite helpless to halt the devastat¬ 
ing epidemics that swept through the cities. 
Little Simone had been only two years old when 
the plague broke through the doors of nearly 
every house in the proud city of Genoa; and his 
mother and father had both been carried off to 
rest forever in the quiet cemetery at the foot of 
the hill. 

And that was the time he had come to live in 
the big old house with his grandfather, who 
loved him so tenderly, and whom he loved with 
all his heart. He loved Rosa, his patient old 
nurse, also, and Federico, who had served his 
grandfather for thirty years. And of course 
he loved Karo, the big, faithful dog, which kept 
close at his side all day, and slept at the foot of 


94 Proverb Stories of Many Lands 

his bed at night. He did not quite love Padre 
Luigi, who came each day to teach him mathe¬ 
matics, and read to him from the Holy Scrip¬ 
tures. Padre Luigi was a stern man, and the 
child was a little afraid of him. But the studies 
delighted Simone, and gave him so much to 
ponder and wonder about, later in the day, that 
he was almost fond of the austere priest because 
of them. He was not entirely friendless, you 
see; only, the great outdoors and the freedom 
of discovering the world for himself had been 
denied him. 

There were other things besides the people 
in the street that Simone watched through the 
long days. From a corner of his playground on 
the housetop he could look out above the roofs 
of the houses that sloped down to the harbor, 
and see the glimmer of the sun on the blue 
water. And on the narrow neck of land that 
jutted out into the Mediterranean, he could see 
the slim, lofty structure that the workmen were 
hurrying to complete, and that was called the 
“Laterna.” Some time a fire was to be lit every 
night at the very top of the Laterna, as a guide 
to mariners far out at sea, but now great bon- 


The Voice of Pietro in the Crowd 95 

fires were kindled at night on the rocks to warn 
away the frail craft that ventured on such long 
voyages so fearlessly. 

On the eve of Simone’s tenth birthday his 
grandfather summoned the child, and spoke to 
him long and earnestly. 

“Thou art growing up to be a man, Simone, 
my little one,” the old man said, and there was 
a quaver in his voice. “To-morrow it will be 
ten whole years since the day of thy birth. 
Thou art tall and strong, and hast learned 
eagerly of Padre Luigi. And thou hast been 
kept carefully from the sight of all evil. That 
was thy father’s fervent wish. Just before 
he passed into the Kingdom of our Lord, he 
begged me to help thee become a good man, 
than which there is no greater thing.” 

There was something in the thickening 
gloom of the twilight and the solemn voice of 
his grandfather, that brought tears into the 
eyes of the child. 

“The world is filled with good and evil,” con¬ 
tinued the old man, “and the evil often spoils 
the good; but also, the good can raise the evil. 
It all depends on which is the stronger. I have 


96 Proverb Stories of Many Lands 

tried to teach thee, with the help of Padre 
Luigi, what is good. Now thou shalt go out 
among the people and see for thyself. Thou art 
old enough to think, and to judge people by 
their acts. Choose those that are honest and 
loyal and unselfish, to be thy friends. In the 
company of good men, thou may’st grow to be 
one also.” 

Then they sat for a long time, each busy with 
his own thoughts, neither uttering a single 
word, until the darkness of night settled all 
around. 

That was the beginning of a new life. The 
next morning, Simone Boccanegra, the sturdy 
little lad of ten, stepped out from the massive 
doorway of the old mansion for the first time 
in his remembrance. It was a thrilling moment 
for the child. His face was flushed, and he 
clung nervously to his grandfather’s hand. 
Even Karo the dog seemed to sense the signifi¬ 
cance of that step. He came up close to his lit¬ 
tle master, and walked slowly by his side, as 
though he were fastened there. 

At the foot of their steep, crooked street. 


The Voice of Pietro in the Crowd 97 

three ragged, dirty little urchins were playing 
at one of the oldest, most absorbing games in 
the history of mankind, the game of warfare. 
They were all two or three years older than 
Simone, and they jabbed at one another with 
their crude, hand-whittled wooden sabers, as 
seriously as men might do in real conflict. 
Pietro, their leader,—quite the dirtiest and 
most unkempt of the three,—had fashioned his 
weapon more cleverly than the others, and the 
jabs he inflicted, though unable to do any real 
harm, had roused the wrath of his small oppo¬ 
nents, so that they both thrust at him furiously. 

Suddenly Pietro saw Simone and his grand¬ 
father, accompanied by Karo, coming down the 
street; and he shouted, at the top of his voice, 
as seems to have been the custom of children 
of the streets since the very day the first street 
was invented: 

“Here comes the Boy-at-the-Window! Here 
comes the grandson of Guglielmo Boccanegra!” 

And as the others stopped and stared, his 
sharp wits traveled farther and he added: 

“The grandson of a capitano should have a 


98 Proverb Stories of Many Lands 

military escort to prove his rank. My fellow- 
Genoese, carry your sabers at attention, and 
follow me!” 

The three queer little figures, carrying the 
wooden swords point-upward at their shoulders, 
stepped into line, several paces behind the “Boy- 
at-the-Window,” and followed him solemnly. 
And so, flanked by his grandfather and the 
faithful dog, and guarded in the rear by three 
warlike ragamuffins, Simone walked through 
the streets of Genoa, the proud city that even at 
that time had won the name of “La Superba. ,, 

There were many things of which Genoa 
could justly boast in those days; her splendid 
harbor, the greatest and busiest on the Mediter¬ 
ranean Sea; her enormous trade, extending in 
every direction, the arteries of her power; her 
industrious and prosperous citizens; her well- 
fortified citadel and powerful fleet; and chief 
of all, her free government, which elected its 
own leaders and made its own laws. 

And as they walked slowly through the 
streets Simone’s grandfather told the child a 
great deal of the story of the sturdy Genoese 
who had built this glorious city and acquired so 


The Voice of Pietro in the Crowd 99 

much power. Since the year 888, Genoa had 
been a free city, or republic, ruled by consuls 
elected from certain noble families. Of course, 
the republic was not limited in territory to the 
confines of the city itself« In that long-ago time 
all Italy was divided up into sections, each sec¬ 
tion ruled by a great city. And, as would in¬ 
evitably happen under such conditions, each 
city waged war on the districts bordering its 
domain, in an effort to increase its size. Genoa, 
however, owing to her peculiar position, 
hemmed in from all sides by lofty impassable 
mountain barriers, counted only a small strip of 
sea-coast along the Mediterranean as her ter¬ 
ritory, and that is the reason why she built her¬ 
self many ships. She had proved her prowess 
in places far from the home land, and won val¬ 
uable colonies. These colonies were spread in 
every direction. There were the Balearic 
Islands, which Genoa had wrested from Spain 
in 1146; there were Smyrna and Tenedos and 
Pera; and there was Caffa, in the Black Sea. 
Guglielmo Boccanegra loved to speak of the 
conquests of his beloved city, and the child 
exulted in his story. 


ioo Proverb Stories of Many Lands 

At length they came to the massive stone wall 
that surrounded the city, and paused beside the 
Porta degli Archi. 

“Ah, my little one, stand for a moment and 
admire the great wall, ,, said the old man, point¬ 
ing to its splendid height and thickness. “The 
people of Genoa are very proud of this wall, and 
they have reason to be. A long time ago, in 
the year 1154, the Teuton Barbarossa, with a 
horde of wild men, came down upon us from 
the north. He did not make war upon us; per¬ 
haps he dared not meet our valiant soldiers with 
his untrained men. But he made certain de¬ 
mands; and we, knowing that we were not so 
strong as he supposed, submitted weakly. 
When he returned to his cold country, we knew 
he would come back, for we did not trust him; 
and so we hastened to prepare ourselves for his 
return. For eight days men and women—and 
even little children, I have been told—toiled 
night and day at the raising of a wall around 
their city. And at the end of that time, so much 
had been built that one would have supposed it 
to be the labor of a year.” 


The Voice of Pietro in the Crowd 101 

“And did Barbarossa and his wild men really 
return ?” asked the child anxiously. 

“Yes, but he never challenged Genoa to 
battle.” 

Little Simone looked admiringly up at the 
work of his countrymen, and passed his hand 
gently over the rough stones. Then the old 
man clasped the child's hand firmly again, and 
they walked on together, out into the open 
country. They passed through fields and 
peaceful pasture-lands, and skirted delicately 
green olive groves on the hill slopes. And 
sometimes they stopped to speak with a peasant 
working on his land, or were gravely saluted by 
an old veteran who had served gallantly with 
Guglielmo Boccanegra’s forces long before. 

By the time they returned to the city they 
were both tired, and anxious to reach their 
home. Their curious military escort had fol¬ 
lowed them the whole way; Simone had glanced 
over his shoulder at them many times, and 
smiled, but his grandfather pretended not to 
know of their existence, for it was beneath the 
dignity of a capitano to take notice of these 
small and uninvited attendants. 


102 Proverb Stories of Many Lands 

Before entering the door of his home, 
Simone turned and called the urchins nearer. 
Then he placed in the dirty little palm of each a 
tiny coin from the purse at his belt, and thanked 
them gravely for their friendliness. The old 
man stood waiting on the threshold, and smiled 
to himself at the earnestness of children’s 
make-believe. But the three little beggars 
threw their caps into the air with a shout, and 
Pietro turned a handspring in his joy. 

From that day on, Simone and his grand¬ 
father went out often together, and each time 
they saw new wonders. Once it was the iron 
harbor chain from Porto Pisano, which hung 
in the market-place. The old man’s eyes 
glowed as he related the story of the glorious 
sea battle of Meloria. The city of Pisa had 
been the most powerful of Genoa’s rivals, and 
so sure were the Pisans of their strength, that 
they taunted the Genoese, and insulted them. 
Roused to fury, Genoa manned and armed 
eighty-eight galleys and sailed them across to 
the Pisan coast when they were least expected. 
And there was fought a most bloody and merci¬ 
less battle. Almost all the nobles of Pisa were 


The Voice of Pietro in the Crowd 103 

killed or taken prisoner, and the power of that 
city was crushed and broken. As a souvenir of 
their conquest the Genoese carried off the 
Pisans’ harbor chain, and cherish it even to-day. 

Guglielmo Boccanegra had taken part in the 
great celebration with which Genoa greeted her 
victorious heroes, and he had been the one to 
suggest hanging a piece of the chain across the 
fagade of the Palazzo del Capitano, which he 
had had erected in 1260, when he was Capitano 
of Genoa. The stone lions’ heads which the 
Genoese had brought home as a trophy after 
their victory over the Venetian fortress at 
Pantocratore, had been built into this same 
fagade, and they are still to be seen on the north 
side of the dim old building which was once the 
seat of government. 

That was a part of the city to which the old 
man seldom led the child. It reminded him too 
poignantly of the days when he had been in 
power, and of the jealous nobles who had 
brought about his downfall. But when Simone 
grew to be a young man, he went there often by 
himself, for it was near the wharves and docks, 
and nothing interested him more than the ship- 


104 Proverb Stories of Many Lands 

ping and the strange cargoes from many lands. 
And so it happened that he witnessed one day 
in the year 1317—in the square in front of the 
Palazzo del Capitano—a bloody riot between 
the Guelfs and the Ghibellines, the two political 
factions in the city. When Simone told his 
grandfather of this terrible street fight, the old 
man turned pale and trembled. 

“Will our people never learn,” he said, “to 
live in peace! They have conquered their 
enemies, and now they must needs fight 
amongst themselves, brother against brother! 
Their devotion passes from one master to the 
next; it is a weak, unstable thing. Be warned, 
Simone, my child: the ambition to lead these 
people has caused the downfall of many men 
besides myself. Navigate thy fortunes in 
safer waters than the treacherous shoals of 
government. ,, 

“Thou hast chosen an apt simile, Grand¬ 
father, for it is of ships and distant lands that I 
dream always. I would be a merchant, and 
carry back and forth across the seas the things 
that people buy.” 


The Voice of Pietro in the Crowd 105 

The old man pondered for a moment. 

“It is a fair ambition, Simone,” he said at 
last. “Though our family has never engaged 
in trade before, it is a calling not unworthy, and 
one that will take you among the common peo¬ 
ple, whose intentions are kindly and good, in¬ 
stead of among the nobles, whose intentions 
are evil.” 

And so it happened that in course of time 
Simone became a merchant, dealing in cloth and 
fine fabrics. His vessels called at many ports 
on the Mediterranean, and his transactions 
were known to be more honest and fair than 
those of other men. 

Meanwhile, Genoa had been fighting, for 
one reason or another, almost constantly. The 
power of government passed from the Guelfs to 
the Ghibellines, and back again; and when both 
factions were completely exhausted, a for¬ 
eigner would grasp the reins of power and hold 
them as long as he might. Thus, Robert of 
Sicily was lord of Genoa for ten years. His 
was an irksome yoke, and when at last, in 
1330, the Genoese won back their city for them- 


106 Proverb Stories of Many Lands 

selves, with what seemed inspiration, they 
divided the power to rule between equal num¬ 
bers of Guelfs and Ghibellines,—and elected 
besides, a leader of the people, who should 
guard their rights, and whom they called the 
Abbate del Popolo. 

Even this happy plan worked well for only 
a short time; then the strife began again, and 
the nobles reserved the right to elect the abbate 
from among themselves. In 1339, the people 
rose in revolt against this injustice, and then 
a very dramatic thing happened. Electors 
chosen from the people assembled in the 
Palazzo del Capitano to choose a new abbate, 
while a huge crowd gathered in the open square 
outside. Hour after hour the voices of the 
electors droned on, and the crowd, looking 
anxiously up at the windows of the Palazzo, 
grew restive., 

At last a young workman, his hands and 
clothes soiled and coarse, climbed up on the 
fountain in the center of the square. He raised 
his cap in his hand, and the people turned to him 
and listened. 


The Voice of Pietro in the Crowd 107 

“I am only a common mechanic,” he said. 
“Will you listen to me, people of Genoa ?” 

There was silence for a moment; then the 
multitude shouted their approval. 

“Many of you know me, but some of you 
do not,” the young man went on. “My name 
is Pietro, and I am a maker of foils and 
sabers, which some of you are wearing at your 
sides to-day. I know little about the men who 
would rule us, and less about their method of 
doing so. But I do know, and so do you all, 
my fellow-Genoese, that these men forget our 
rights and needs as soon as they rise to power. 
Why should we stand here and wait—we, the 
people of La Superba—while the electors sit in 
the council-room, drinking and gossiping, in¬ 
stead of choosing a worthy leader for us. Let 
us choose a leader ourselves, and let us choose 
a good and honest man. There is such a one 
here, standing among us in the market-place.” 
He pointed into the heart of the throng. “Let us 
make Simone Boccanegra our abbate!” 

Then a slow, soft murmur passed through 
the crowd, spreading and growing in volume 


108 Proverb Stories of Many Lands 

till it broke out in a mighty shout, so that the 
very walls of the Palazzo del Capitano shook 
with the tumultuous reverberation. 

“Yes!” the collective voice rolled like thunder* 
“Simone Boccanegra shall be our abbate!” 

The electors, deliberating drowsily over the 
possibilities of a half-dozen candidates, became 
suddenly aware of the surging shout rising 
from the market-place. Their faces went white, 
and a few ventured to peep out at the windows. 
They reported to those more timid ones, who 
remained at the long table, how Pietro, a com¬ 
mon working-man, was clinging to the stone¬ 
work of the fountain. He was waving his cap 
and inciting the people, they said. By mutual 
consent the electors scrambled in a body down 
the stairway, and out into the market-place. 
They edged and elbowed and pushed their way 
through the swaying mob, to the center of the 
square, where the fountain stood. 

Pietro had slipped down from his place of 
vantage, by this time, and was standing at the 
fountain’s base, his face red and moist from 
exertion and emotion, and his smile was one of 
triumph. Pietro, the foil-maker, who had once 


The Voice of Pietro in the Crowd 109 

been a dirty little ragamuffin parading with a 
wooden sword at a respectful distance behind 
the Boy-at-the-Window, was living the great 
moment of his life. 

Simone, in the meantime, standing in the 
crowd,—taken quite unaware, surprised and 
confused,—was being jostled, unwillingly 
enough, toward the center of the square. He 
found himself standing between the two 
capitani, and one of them had placed the sword 
of the abbate into his hands. 

“Fellow-citizens,” Simone said, and his voice 
shook a little, “I am indeed greatly moved. 
You have honored me with a confidence that 
brings tears to my eyes. And for that con¬ 
fidence I thank you earnestly. But I am a 
merchant, my friends; I have not been educated 
in politics. I beg you therefore, find some one 
among you more fitted to fill this office of 
trust.” 

And he handed the sword of the abbate back 
to the capitano who had given it to him. The 
crowd commented among themselves on this 
turn of affairs. The murmur which arose 
proved they were growing impatient. Then the 


no Proverb Stories of Many Lands 

voice of Pietro, a trifle hoarse from much 
shouting, called for silence. 

“If he will not be our abbate and lead the 
party of the people, let him be our signore, and 
lead the whole republic!” 

A burst of wild applause and another mighty 
shout were the immediate response. The 
electors and the capitani stood aghast; there 
was no denying the people now. They began to 
press Boccanegra to accept the office of abbate. 
After all, they would rather that he should be¬ 
come the leader of the people than that he 
should be raised to the very pinnacle of power. 
The mutterings of the multitude were grow¬ 
ing ominous, and Simone knew he must act at 
once. He stepped up on a ledge of the fountain, 
and silence fell in the market-place. 

“There is no mistaking my duty,” he said, 
his voice ringing clear and true. “My fellow- 
Genoese, you may trust me. I will serve you to 
the limit of my ability. Name the office to 
which you would appoint me. I accept it.” 

The answer was not long in coming. Their 
wish was that he be their sole ruler, and they 
conferred upon him the title of Doge. 


The Voice of Pietro in the Crowd ill 

Never had a crowd been more boisterous and 
exultant. They carried Simone upon their 
shoulders to his home, and the city declared a 
holiday, and draped the streets with flags. 
Had Guglielmo Boccanegra been still alive, all 
the bitterness would have been erased from his 
heart. 

That is how it came about that Simone Boc¬ 
canegra, who had once been known as the Lit- 
tle-Boy-at-the-Window, became the first Doge, 
or Duke, of Genoa. And he filled the office 
with honor. It was one that required the 
greatest wisdom and tact. Simone ruled firmly 
and prudently, and for five years Genoa en¬ 
joyed peace. He chose his ministers and ad¬ 
visers from men whose merit had been proved, 
for his motto was ever the one he had learned 
from his grandfather when he was a child: 
“Keep company with good men and you will 
increase their number.” 

In 1344 the factions of the nobles combined 
and became very strong, and they forced Boc¬ 
canegra to resign from office. For ten years he 
led a quiet, secluded life. Not so the Republic 
of Genoa: one battle followed upon another. 


112 Proverb Stories of Many Lands 

first with the Venetians and then with the 
Milanese. And finally civil strife broke out in 
the city of La Superba. 

Then the poor people of Genoa, exhausted 
and miserable, turned again to their first Doge, 
and implored him to lead them back to peace. 
When he consented, they reinstated him, and 
his power was even greater than before. For 
seven years he ruled again, and the people al¬ 
most worshiped him. But alas! a treacherous 
nobleman killed him with poison, and so he died, 
in his prime and at his post. But the name of 
Simone Boccanegra has endured on the lips 
of his fellow-men for nearly six hundred years, 
and is always uttered with love and admiration. 
And his motto is still remembered: 

Keep company with good men and you will 
increase their number . 


LADY MARY SHAKES THE TREE 



LADY MARY SHAKES THE TREE 


E VELYN PIERREPONT, Earl of King¬ 
ston, was very rarely to be found in his 
own home: first, because he took an active part 
in politics, which in his day were in a pretty 
mess and necessitated his presence at the court 
in London; secondly, because his pleasures— 
which he never neglected for the sake of mere 
duty—were much more easily to be found in 
the great city than in the small town of Thores- 
by, in Nottinghamshire, where his ancestral 
home was situated. 

In justice we must admit that the earl had 
honest reason to consider the old mansion in 
Thoresby extremely dull, for his lovely and 
vivacious wife had died very young, leaving 
him with four little children, the eldest of whom 
was only a baby of three years. He took his 
responsibility as a father as lightly as possible 
and was almost a stranger to his children. Yet 
we are inclined to think that he might have 


n6 Proverb Stories of Many Lands 

found it very “amusing” to know them better, 
(Lord Kingston’s emotions seldom rose beyond 
the pitch of amusement.) 

It was upon one of his fleeting visits to 
Thoresby, shortly after the death of Lady 
Kingston, that he discovered that little Lady 
Mary, his eldest child, was given to what he 
termed “antics.” One dreary winter’s morning, 
the little girl disappeared unnoticed from the 
breakfast table in the nursery and trotted 
downstairs on a mission of exploration and ad¬ 
venture. Knowing nothing of the fact that her 
father was at home, she opened a door and 
walked into the great library, where she had 
seldom been before. No one was in the room, 
and at first she had a lovely time, peering up at 
the dim pictures above the book-shelves, climb¬ 
ing into one after another of the high-backed 
chairs, and trying to lift the big books, nearly 
all of which were too heavy for her. But by and 
by she began to feel cold and tired, and, having 
found an empty book-shelf in a dark corner of 
the room, she climbed into it, curled herself up 
like a kitten, and fell fast asleep. 

When she awoke she began to cry—she was 


Lady Mary Shakes the Tree 117 

just a little thing, you know. She was very 
cramped and uncomfortable on the hard, nar¬ 
row shelf; and, too, she was really frightened 
at her strange surroundings and was not yet 
sufficiently aroused to remember where she 
was. His lordship sat at the table before the 
fire, writing a letter; and, being very much ab¬ 
sorbed in what he was doing, and, besides, quite 
unfamiliar with that kind of sound, he was dis¬ 
turbed by but failed to recognize the little wail 
that came from a shadowy corner of the library. 

His quill scratched across the paper. Then 
he looked about him in bewilderment. 

“What an extraordinary noise!” he mut¬ 
tered. “How very distressing!” 

But he applied himself again to the composi¬ 
tion of his letter, and would have forgotten the 
interruption completely had it not been very 
soon repeated. This time, Lord Kingston put 
out his hand and pulled the bell-cord vigorously. 
When Thomas, the very tall footman, appeared, 
he found his lordship much annoyed. 

“There is a very disturbing noise in this 
room, Thomas,” he said. “Have it stopped at 
once.” 


n8 Proverb Stories of Many Lands 

Thomas stood still for a moment to ascertain 
what the noise might be, and from which direc¬ 
tion it came. And, because by this time little 
Lady Mary had recovered her senses, her shrill 
baby voice piped out quite clearly from the 
darkest recess in the library: 

“It’s me, Thomas. And I want to get down, 
please,” 

And when she had been rescued from the 
uncomfortable shelf, and was being carried 
from the room on Thomas’s shoulder, she was 
so very much afraid of her august father that 
she dared not look at him, but tightly clutched 
the golden braid of the footman’s uniform and 
hid her pretty face behind her curls. 

This little episode was spoken of by his lord- 
ship as “a most surprising antic, upon my 
word!” and he did not soon forget it. This is 
proved by the fact that Lady Mary and her 
nurse were packed off the very next week to 
West Dean, to the home of her paternal grand¬ 
mother, that she might learn there the manners 
becoming to a well-behaved child of noble birth; 

Now, this grandmother,, as it happens, was a 


Lady Mary Shakes the Tree 119 

very remarkable woman; for, besides calmly 
and efficiently managing a vast estate, she had 
acquired some learning, and spent every leisure 
moment in her well-filled library. It was an 
age when women of rank or even royalty, were 
educated as little as possible beyond the attain¬ 
ment of certain elegancies and formal manners, 
and were doomed to a life whose only interests 
were the frivolities and gossip of the court.; 
How Mrs. Elizabeth Pierrepont came to lead a 
life of retirement in West Dean and to find her 
greatest pleasure in her books, it would be hard 
to discover at this late date, for the good lady 
passed from this world in the year 1699. But 
there she was, and there was little Lady Mary 
also, at the time of which I write. 

Because she was so pretty and sprightly and 
high-spirited a child, Grandmother Pierrepont 
soon grew very fond of her, and she gave 
orders that Lady Mary should be brought 
downstairs every afternoon, so that the little 
girl might spend an hour or two with her out 
in the beautiful park-like gardens, or, when the 
weather was bad, before the cheerful log fire 


120 Proverb Stories of Many Lands 

in the library. Lady Mary was encouraged to 
bring her playthings (crude and clumsy the 
children of to-day would find them!) and amuse 
herself with them while her grandmother read 
or smilingly watched her. 

But the child, though she was so very little 
and loved to romp, had a brain as quick and 
active as her body. Sometimes she would tire 
of playing with her dolls, and, picking up a 
book, would gravely turn its pages. Presently, 
coming to her grandmother’s side, she would 
drop a little courtesy and inquire, “What letter 
this might be, or that?” pointing with her 
dimpled baby finger., 

Mrs. Pierrepont was pleased that the child 
showed an interest in what she so dearly loved, 
and she always answered and explained most 
kindly. But it did not occur to her that Lady 
Mary might be clever enough to combine the 
letters into words. The good lady had serious 
plans for the child’s future education, and in¬ 
tended that her granddaughter should be 
taught to read and write and cipher as soon as 
she was old enough; but the fact is, that little 


Lady Mary Shakes the Tree 121 

Lady Mary had taught herself to read before 
any one was aware of it. And this was made 
evident, in a most startling manner, one mem¬ 
orable afternoon., 

Bishop Burnet was visiting Mrs. Pierrepont, 
to whom he was distantly related, and he asked 
to meet her little granddaughter. Lady Mary 
was carefully washed and brushed and sent to 
the drawing-room. Being well trained by this 
time, she dropped to her knees before the bisnop 
to receive his blessing, and then stepped to one 
side to await his pleasure. 

“Very beautiful child/’ said his Grace, ad¬ 
dressing Mrs. Pierrepont; “and resembles you, 
madam—most wisely.” Then, lifting Lady 
Mary’s chin with his finger, he asked: “And 
do you know anything, my child?” 

Mrs. Pierrepont was just about to explain 
that because of her tender years Lady Mary 
had not yet been tutored, when the child 
answered his Grace herself. 

“I know some poetry,” she said proudly., 

“Indeed!” said the bishop, and his eyes 
twinkled through his spectacles; “and pray, 
what kind of poetry do you know ?” 


122 Proverb Stories of Many Lands 

Little Lady Mary, quite simply, began to 
recite: 

“Her feet beneath her petticoat 
Like little mice stole in and out, . 

As if they feared the light; 

But oh, she dances such a way! 

No sun upon an Easter-day 
Is half so fine a sight.” 

Grandmother Pierrepont sat staring, wide- 
eyed, at the child; and the bishop completely 
forgot his accustomed dignity and laughed out¬ 
right. The poem, it is true, was popular 
enough, and much admired at the time, but 
where could the little creature have picked it up 
in that stately old house in the country, where 
she so rarely spoke with any one but her grand¬ 
mother and the servants! 

‘That was most pretty,” said Mrs. Pierre¬ 
pont, at length, when she had recovered her 
composure; “from where have you got it, my 
child?” 

“From the little book next the old atlas,” 
answered Lady Mary promptly, and quickly 
ran to fetch the book to show them. And there, 
sure enough, was the poem, and a score of 
others besides. Little Lady Mary had spelled 


* Lady Mary Shakes the Tree 123 

them all out carefully, word for word, and had 
memorized some of them, too, for she was de¬ 
lighted and fascinated by the lilt and melody of 
the lines. 

Grandmother Pierrepont was more delighted 
than she dared openly show in the presence of 
her small grandchild, and Bishop Burnet sat 
chuckling to himself and rubbing his hands for 
several minutes. Lady Mary, being very quick 
and observant, was certain she had pleased 
them both. And the energy and perseverance 
she brought to the lessons that were promptly 
begun the very next day, under the guidance of 
her capable grandmother, proved how earnestly 
her little mind craved knowledge. 

For four years Lady Mary lived at West 
Dean, and she spent many an evening in read¬ 
ing aloud to Grandmother Pierrepont. And 
very close indeed became the bond of love and 
companionship between these two, so far apart 
in age. 

Then, when she was eight years old, Lord 
Kingston sent for the child, and she journeyed 
back to Thoresby. His lordship thought the 
little maid who presented herself before him in 


124 Proverb Stories of Many Lands 

the candle-lit library upon her return, very dif¬ 
ferent from the tearful, frightened baby whom 
Thomas had carried from that very room four 
years before. 

Being a gay man, rather than a wise one, and 
being not a little pleased with Lady Mary’s 
beauty and grace and the brightness and wit 
of her conversation,—which far suspassed that 
of other children of her age,—he determined 
to take her with him to London for a few weeks 
and show her off before his friends. Now, 
this was not a sensible thing to do, because chil¬ 
dren are generally spoiled by much admiration 
and praise, not realizing how lightly and care¬ 
lessly words of flattery are often uttered, and 
how seldom real esteem expresses itself in ex¬ 
travagant compliments. It is, therefore, a 
proof of this small lady’s uncommon sense and 
judgment that she could, at so early an age, dis¬ 
tinguish between true admiration and false, 
with an instinctive wish to win the former. 

All of which was shown in this wise: 

Lord Kingston was a member of the Kit-Cat 
Club, a political organization, to which belonged 
many of the most celebrated men of the age. 


Lady Mary Shakes the Tree 125 

Statesmen and generals, poets and noblemen 
met here to foster the interests of the Whig 
party, which had fallen so sadly from power 
during the reign of Queen Anne., It was a 
custom of this club to choose each year, by vote 
of the members, the most beautiful and charm¬ 
ing of the grand ladies of London society, 
whose portrait was to hang on the walls of the 
club-room and to whom a toast was to be drunk 
at each meeting. One day Lord Kingston, in a 
spirit of jest, announced that he knew a lady 
fairer than any other they might choose, and 
worthy indeed to be their goddess for the year. 
When the gentlemen demanded who this beauty 
might be, his lordship despatched his coachman 
with orders that Lady Mary was to be dressed 
in her prettiest frock and brought at once to the 
club-house. 

It was a strange adventure for a little girl. 
The atmosphere of the club, which was little 
better than a tavern, was surely such as a care¬ 
ful mother would strive to keep from her child. 
But Lord Kingston was a careless father, and 
his pride was gratified at the unanimous ap¬ 
plause she won and the pretty manner with 


126 Proverb Stories of Many Lands 

which she answered the sallies of the great men 
sitting in the club-room.. 

Of them all, only one sat silent in a corner, 
watching the child intently but saying not a 
word. At last Lady Mary walked over to him 
and laid her little hand upon his arm. 

“You have not said that you like me., Do 
you not like me, sir ?” she asked wistfully. 

“I do not give voice to my praise easily,” 
answered Mr. Addison, for it was none other 
than he; “nor is it readily won.” 

“Then I must try to gain your favor,” said 
the child. “If it is hard to win, it must be 
worth having.” 

Mr. Addison put his hand upon her head and 
smiled, for she had already won his heart. 

So it came about that little Lady Mary 
Pierrepont, in the year 1697, was chosen the 
toast of the Kit-Cat Club, and her portrait was 
painted by a famous artist to adorn that resort 
of politics and wit, and her health was drunk 
by many great men. But none of these did she 
respect as much as Mr. Addison, for his praise 
was hard to win. 

It was always thus; the child seemed to take 



Lady Mary is toasted by the Kit-Cat Club, 














Lady Mary Shakes the Tree 127 

especial delight in doing the things that were 
difficult to do. And, considering the very 
scanty education she received, it is remarkable 
how far she succeeded in developing her talents. 
She had little help or encouragement from any 
one, for her grandmother, unfortunately, died 
when Lady Mary was ten years old; but the in¬ 
fluence and inspiration of the good old lady of 
West Dean lived on with her granddaughter al¬ 
ways. Lord Kingston ignored his children 
and their ambitions, and, after engaging for 
them a governess, who knew astonishingly lit¬ 
tle herself, he considered his fatherly duty fully 
performed. The old library at Thoresby was 
the source of nearly all the knowledge Lady 
Mary acquired, and was her joy and entertain¬ 
ment besides. 

Before she was fifteen, she was writing very 
creditable poetry, and snatches of stories too, 
though she never took the latter seriously, nor 
completed a single one. But her greatest 
achievement during these years of her girlhood 
was learning Latin. She applied herself so 
earnestly to the study of this language, that, 
though she had scarcely any assistance or 


128 Proverb Stories of Many Lands 

guidance, she mastered it sufficiently to trans¬ 
late the “Discourses” of Epictetus into English. 
And that, certainly, was no inconsiderable feat! 

This conquering of the Latin language was 
just another evidence of Lady Mary’s most 
striking characteristic—the desire to have that 
[which was difficult to get. In a poem called 
“The Answer,” she gave expression to this 
peculiarity of hers: 

But the fruit that can fall without shaking 
Indeed is too mellow for me. 

This particular fruit required a great deal of 
shaking, as you can well suppose, but the re¬ 
ward was twofold. Not only did Lady Mary 
possess herself of the learning she so much de¬ 
sired, but around its acquisition are wound the 
first threads of her life’s romance. 

Mi$s Anne Montagu, a striking beauty and a 
very sweet and gracious young lady, was Lady 
Mary’s dearest friend. She herself had no un¬ 
usual gifts of mind, but she did have a brother 
who had traveled extensively on the Continent 
—no ordinary occurrence in those days—and 
who was an active young Whig, with splendid 
prospects whenever his party might rise again 


Lady Mary Shakes the Tree 129 

to power. Mr. Wortley Montagu was devoted 
to his sister. Hearing from her of so extraor¬ 
dinary a thing as a society belle (Lady Mary 
had been presented at court and was much ad¬ 
mired) who applied herself to serious study, he 
determined to remain at home one afternoon 
when the young lady was to call, so that he 
might gaze upon this curiosity. 

That meeting was fatal to Wortley Mon¬ 
tagu’s peace of mind; for though he strove to 
drive from his memory the thought of the 
lovely girl who had plied him with questions 
about his travels and sought his advice in the 
choice of books of Latin grammar and Italian 
poetry, the image of her sweet face with its 
lively expression haunted him wherever he 
might be. He quarreled with himself, and not 
infrequently he quarreled with her, because her 
charm held him when he wished to be free; but 
he contrived to meet her often at the opera or 
in the homes of her friends, and the letters his 
sister Anne wrote Lady Mary were nearly all 
copies of drafts written in his handwriting, 
which are still in existence. As for Lady Mary, 
she had lost her heart to him at the start. 


130 Proverb Stories of Many Lands 

At last Wortley Montagu presented himself 
to Lord Kingston, to ask for his daughter’s 
hand; but upon his failing to submit to that un¬ 
reasonable nobleman’s demands with regard to 
the marriage settlement, all negotiations were 
abruptly broken off, Lady Mary was sent to 
Thoresby, where she might see no one, and his 
lordship proceeded to make arrangements to 
marry her to an elderly Irishman of consider¬ 
able wealth and property. So the wedding-day 
was set and the wedding-clothes were made, 
and all Lady Mary’s efforts in behalf of her 
own true love were in vain, when young Mon¬ 
tagu, with a strength of character which we, 
with our different customs, cannot half appre¬ 
ciate, determined to forego the dowry, and 
eloped with Lady Mary from Thoresby and 
married her* 

Lord Kingston never really forgave her, nor 
even saw her more than two or three times 
after that; but she did not regret the step she 
had taken, and was content to live in the very 
modest style her husband’s income permitted 
during the first few years of their marriage. 


Lady Mary Shakes the Tree 131 

Then, when Queen Anne had died, and 
George the First from Hanover ascended the 
throne of England, the fortunes of the Whigs 
improved, and Wortley Montagu was sent as 
ambassador, first to Vienna and later to Con¬ 
stantinople., His wife and their little son ac¬ 
companied him, of course, and the letters which 
Lady Mary Wortley Montagu wrote from these 
remote countries, to her sister, the Countess of 
Mar, and to her friends in London, have been 
collected and published and are read with de¬ 
light even to-day. 

Lady Mary's greatest achievement, however, 
and the one for which the world owes her 
thanks, was the introduction into England of 
the Eastern custom of inoculation for smallpox. 
Until then, smallpox epidemics had swept fre¬ 
quently over the land, and had carried off 
thousands of helpless victims. Lady Mary 
herself had suffered from this fearful disease, 
and her only brother had died of it. When, 
therefore, she learned, in her travels in the 
East, that the people there had found a means 
of checking these periodic ravages, she learned 


132 Proverb Stories of Many Lands 

the method and brought the knowledge back 
with her to England. 

Lady Mary had both her children innocu- 
lated, in order to prove to her countrymen the 
value of the treatment; but all England rose 
against it and against her. Lady Mary's life 
was made miserable, but she persevered, and 
before many years had passed, she had the 
satisfaction of seeing the benefit she had intro¬ 
duced to her native land firmly established 
there. 

Without her patience and resolute effort, this 
great thing would not have been accomplished; 
but, as Lady Mary herself had said: 

The fruit that can fall without shaking 
Indeed is too mellow for me. 


THE BLACK CAMEL 



THE BLACK CAMEL 


I T was a slow and wearisome journey across 
the desert. Hour after hour, day after day, 
the little caravan traveled, and the prospect 
scarcely changed. The ridge of plateau-land to 
the east, vaguely outlined through the dazzling 
heat; an occasional glimpse of the Red Sea to 
the west; and otherwise nothing; nothing at all 
but the dreary stretch of sand behind, and the 
dreary and seemingly endless stretch of sand 
ahead. The noiseless tread of the camels, as 
they swung steadily on also was monotonous, 
and the desolation all around affected the 
spirits of the travelers, till their minds, too, 
became parched and empty wastes. 

Mankind, fortified with an eternal optimism, 
has smiled and sung amid unbelievable hard¬ 
ships, but after the fifth day of travel no mem¬ 
ber of the caravan raised his voice to utter a 
word of cheer. Silently, doggedly they rode, 
and when night came they pitched their crude 
135 


136 Proverb Stories of Many Lands 

tents on the burning sands, and slept because 
they were exhausted. The darkness brought 
little relief.. Of course, the mere absence of the 
sun was something infinitely welcome, but the 
baked sands radiated a scorching heat, and the 
dry and stifling air remained motionless, as 
though 'the breathing of Mother Earth were 
completely suspended. 

The caravan was composed of ten persons. 
There was Keerah, the leader,—a tall, slender 
Arab with clean-cut features; energetic, intelli¬ 
gent,—and with him were two kinsmen. The 
remaining seven were slaves, purchased by 
Keerah a few days before, in the great slave- 
market at Petra, in Arabia, Of these slaves, 
five were men and two women. The men were 
negroes from northern Africa, but the women 
were Bedouin Arabs from the Syrian desert 
district. Human lives were sold and bartered 
in those days, for the time of which I write 
was long, long ago; indeed, as nearly as I can 
figure from the ancient records, it was about 
1050 b. c. 

One of the five male slaves was ’Anka, a 
skilled workman who had learned in Egypt to 


The Black Camel 


137 


build with sun-baked clay. He had been bought 
by Keerah because of his skill, for Keerah’s 
master, the Sheik Rejmaa, was planning to 
build a new and wonderful city. One of the 
two Arab women was ’Anka’s wife. 

There were twenty camels in the train, for 
the Arab mind has always been keen for busi¬ 
ness, and a journey of hundreds of miles must 
be made to pay in more ways than one. On the 
passage northward the pack-animals had been 
laden with dates and grain from the fertile re¬ 
gion over which Sheik Rejmaa ruled; now, as 
they traveled homeward, they carried the seven 
newly bought slaves, and sacks of salt, and 
spears tipped with spikes of bronze. 

When at length the caravan reached the 
green, well-watered vicinity of the city of 
Medinah, Keerah ordered the tents to be 
pitched, and decided to rest for three days, so 
that man and beast might be refreshed in 
the cool shade of palm-trees and with clear 
spring-water. 

Here, in the still night, with the stars thicker 
and nearer and more golden than we usually see 
them, a boy-child was born to the slave ’Anka 


138 Proverb Stories of Many Lands 

and the Arab woman who was his wife. He 
was a dark-skinned baby with a dimple in his 
chin, and his parents named him Lokman. His 
Arab mother crooned a weird song over him, 
and his father raised his arms to the rising sun 
at daybreak, for his heart was filled with thank¬ 
fulness and pride. 

By a strange coincidence, on the very same 
night a black camel was born in the herd. So 
seldom are black camels seen, that the Arabs 
have always prized them highly and regarded 
them as omens of good luck. When Keerah 
saw the shaggy baby camel, in the morning, he 
rubbed his hands and gloated over the unex¬ 
pected gain. He was in high spirits, and when 
he was also led to view the new-born child, his 
interest and satisfaction were evident. He 
stooped over the tiny infant, and saw how dark 
it was, and his eyes flashed, and he threw his 
head back and laughed loudly. 

“By the wind!” he cried exultantly, “ ’t is 
another black camel, surely! It is doubled good 
luck I shall take home to our mighty master, the 
Sheik Rejmaa!” 

And so when the caravan turned eastward, 


The Black Camel 


139 

two days later, there were eight slaves instead 
of seven* 

The region over which Sheik Rejmaa ruled 
was called Woshem, and was situated near the 
very center of the Arabian peninsula, a moun¬ 
tainous and well-watered country, productive 
beyond most other sections in that sandy land. 
Here some of the finest date-palms flourished, 
and green gardens grew in their protecting 
shade; and here herds of cattle and camels 
browsed in real pastures, and the cool breeze 
swept through the valleys. It was a rich coun¬ 
try over which Rejmaa was lord, and he was a 
prosperous and mighty sheik, and his power 
within his domain was unlimited. 

And this is where the child Lokman lived and 
grew. His home was a tent outside the walls 
of sun-baked mud around the new city that 
’Anka was helping to build. His dress was a 
long white shirt with a girdle of leather; a 
striped cloth covered his head, and was held in 
place with a band of twisted horsehair. His 
food was a bowl of samh, which is an Arabian 
porridge, with a handful of dates, or some stew 
made of earners meat. His mode of life was 


140 Proverb Stories of Many Lands 

primitive according to our standards, but he 
was as happy and playful and as light of heart 
as our own youngsters of to-day. Even his 
bondage was no misfortune, for until he should 
be big and strong enough to do useful work, he 
was quite free, and his small wants were all 
provided for. So the child wandered on the 
hills through the long sunny days, and his ears 
and eyes were open and keenly tuned to every 
stir and rustle of nature. He followed the 
shepherd and the flocks of sheep or camels, and 
he learned the habits of the animals; and some¬ 
times he saw a wild beast spring out from a 
rocky cave or a dense forest, and carry off some 
bleating lamb or helpless calf. 

Among these surroundings the Black Camel 
grew., That nickname clung to him always; 
since the day of his birth, when Keerah had 
uttered it at sight of him, he had always been 
called the Black Camel, so that his real name of 
Lokman was nearly forgotten. 

When he was twelve years old, his first duties 
were assigned him; he was made the tender of a 
small herd of camels. He was given a little 



~.vw 




He was made tender of a small herd of camels. 









• • 
















The Black Camel 


141 


crooked stick, called a mihjan, like those carried 
by all camel-drivers, and with this he drove the 
big animals, each morning, far out from the 
new walled city. Then, lying down on a rock, 
he watched them as they nibbled the feathery 
ghada, their favorite food, and called if one of 
them wandered too far., His occupation was 
not a very active one, and Lokman dreamed a 
great deal, and talked to himself to while away 
the tedious hours. And by and by this seem¬ 
ingly idle talk developed into the invention of 
little stories, and always the stories were about 
animals. 

One day, Keerah was unexpectedly sent upon 
a business errand by his master, Sheik Rejmaa, 
to a town about thirty miles distant. Servants 
were set to work preparing for the little jour¬ 
ney, and Keerah sent one of his own slaves, 
named Sitab, to go in search of the pack-camels, 
which Lokman was tending. Sitab came upon 
them suddenly as he turned a rocky crag. 
There, he beheld their young shepherd gesticu¬ 
lating dramatically and heard him declaiming 
loudly. For a moment he stopped and listened, 


142 Proverb Stories of Many Lands 

and the story that he heard was of a kind most 
strange to him. He stepped out from his con¬ 
cealing rock. 

'‘Where hast thou learned this queer, fantas¬ 
tic story, Black Camel ?" he asked. 

The lad's eyes flashed. 

“It is a story about Keerah’s brother, who 
comes so often upon a visit, and uses honeyed, 
pleasant words, but steals cattle and horses 
from Keerah, behind the master's back. I have 
thought out this story, and I have disguised it 
so that even he would not recognize that it is 
about him." And Lokman repeated it eagerly. 

Several weeks later, Keerah's brother, with 
his false smile, came again to pay a visit. Sitab 
listened as he spun his web of pretty phrases, 
and his thoughts flew back to the child Lokman, 
and the strange story he had told. Then Sitab 
approached his master, Keerah, respectfully. 

“Keerah, my master," he said, “there is a 
way in which you might entertain your brother 
who visits you. The child Lokman, whom we 
call the Black Camel, tells most surprising 
stories. And his stories are of a kind I have 
never heard before, for they are not of kings 


The Black Camel 


143 


and battles, but rather of beasts and fowl, 
which speak and have intelligence. If you 
would like to have him relate his stories to¬ 
night, when your distinguished brother dines 
with you, I will send for him, my master.” 

And Keerah, thinking to please his brother, 
agreed willingly. So that night, in Keerah’s 
adobe home, where a feast was spread before a 
great many guests, Lokman, with wildly beat¬ 
ing heart, told his story. 

“There was once a weasel,” he began, “who 
heard that a flock of chickens belonging to a 
rich man were ill. They had eaten of the 
mesaa berries, and had nearly perished. So 
weak were they, that the weasel thought it 
would be a simple matter to overpower them 
all, and carry them off, one by one, to his lair. 
So he decked himself in the plumage of a pea¬ 
cock which he had killed a few days before, and 
went to visit the chickens. T greet you, O noble 
chickens!' he said. ‘What is the condition of 
your health? I hope you are feeling well and 
merry.' But the chickens recognized his 
squeaky voice, and they answered him: ‘We 
shall feel extremely well, O weasel, on the day 


144 Proverb Stories of Many Lands 

when the hunter kills you , and we no longer see 
your face/ ” 

There was a long pause. Then Keerah 
spoke: 

“It is a strange story, surely! But what is 
the meaning of it all ?” 

His brother broke in quickly: 

“There is no meaning. It is simply the stupid 
fancy of a stupid. child.” 

But Lokman looked straight at him. 

“Keerah your brother is discerning,” he said. 
“There is a meaning to this story. It is 
directed at him who displays an assumed 
friendliness but carries deceit and hypocrisy in 
his heart.” 

There was a murmur from the assembled 
guests, for many of them had nursed in their 
breasts suspicion of Keerah’s brother. But the 
guileless Keerah admired the story immensely. 

“Tell us another of these quaint tales, Black 
Camel,” he demanded. 

Lokman considered for a moment. He 
selected carefully of the stories he had invented 
out on the wild pasture fields. 

“Once upon a time, a great plague of locusts 


The Black Camel 


145 


swept over the land. They came in swarms and 
hosts, so that the sky was blackened at their ap¬ 
proach as by a mighty storm-cloud. And they 
settled down in the green gardens, and began to 
consume everything that grows. The people of 
the village made a great effort to save their 
crops. They went out with baskets of finely 
woven, slender rushes, and they gathered the 
locusts from tree and vine and shrub. 

“A little child was catching locusts, and 
thrusting them into his basket, when he saw a 
large scorpion upon the ground. The child be¬ 
lieved it was a very big locust, and he reached 
out to take it. The scorpion drew back quickly, 
so as to escape the child's hand, and then it said 
to him: Tf thou hadst taken me into thy hand, 
thou wouldst surely have ceased hunting 
locusts.' ” 

It was Keerah again who asked for the mean¬ 
ing of this story. The Black Camel looked 
straight at him as he answered: 

“It means, most honored Keerah, that Man 
should know how to distinguish between good 
and evil, and should treat each thing according 
to its nature." 


146 Proverb Stories of Many Lands 

The next morning, oddly enough, Keerah’s 
brother cut his visit short, and with a scowl up¬ 
on his face, returned to his home. And he car¬ 
ried nothing away with him except the things 
he had brought. 

As the years passed, the Black Camel grew 
to be a man, and always he was weaving new 
stories. The people of all the villages round¬ 
about knew him and came to hear him tell his 
tales. He was an important slave now, for 
Keerah was grown old, and Lokman had been 
made leader of the caravan. So it was that he 
traveled to many places to do the business of his 
venerable master, the Sheik Rejmaa, who had 
grown richer and more powerful than ever. At 
last, he sent Lokman, with a large train of 
camels and many slaves to help him guard the 
valuable goods they carried, far up into the 
North, through a veritable chain of deserts, to 
a land called Palestine, where lived the 
Hebrews, a people rich in culture. 

To this land came Lokman, and, in the great 
market-place at Jerusalem, sold the goods he 
had brought so many weary miles. At the time 
there ruled over this people a great and very 


The Black Camel 


147 


wise king of whom you all have heard, for his 
name was David. David was the greatest king 
in Hebrew history; he was noble and kindly, 
but he could be brave and warlike, also. His 
people flourished under him as they never had 
before, and never have since. And it is to him, 
that we owe the most exquisite psalms ever 
conceived. 

Now it happened, one day, that a servant of 
David chanced to pause, in the market-place, to 
listen to a dark-skinned stranger dressed in the 
garb of the Arabs who dwelt far in the South¬ 
land. This stranger was reciting a fanciful 
story to a group of people, and the story that he 
told had a deep meaning. When he had finished, 
his listeners shouted with enthusiasm, and 
clapped their hands, for they recognized the 
truth hidden in the simple fable. And the ser¬ 
vant told King David of the Arab and his story, 
and David said: 

“Fetch me this man, that I too may hear 
his tales of beasts and birds, in whose ac¬ 
tions are hidden the motives and thoughts of 
men.” 

So Lokman was brought before David, King 


148 Proverb Stories of Many Lands 

of the Hebrews, and a story was demanded of 
him. And this is the fable that he recounted: 

“Once upon a time, a pack of dogs, wander¬ 
ing about the outskirts of a village, came upon 
the skin of a lion, which the hunter had left 
there to dry in the sun. The dogs decided that 
they would tear the skin to pieces. Nearby 
stood a fox, a most wise and clever beast, and 
watched them at their malicious occupation. 
Tf that lion were still alive/ he said to them, 
'you would surely see how much sharper and 
longer and more powerful his claws could be 
than are your teeth/ 

“This story, O great King, concerns itself 
with the human beings who are eager to taunt 
and insult men of rank and merit when those 
men have been superseded and have fallen from 
power,” 

“There is significance in this tale,” said 
David. “Tell me another fable, pilgrim from 
Arabia,” 

Lokman bowed low. 

“O noble King,” he said, “I wish to relate to 
you a story which few of the men I have met 
have comprehended. May I repeat it to you?” 


The Black Camel 


149 


“Proceed,” commanded the king. 

“A lion, one day, met a man on the road, and 
they began to discourse. Presently a dispute 
arose between them as to which race—the 
human beings or the beasts—was the stronger 
and more courageous. The lion boasted of his 
indomitable valor and fearlessness. Then the 
man took a piece of soft white limestone from a 
bag at his girdle and sketched upon the stone 
wall beside the road the picture of a huge, 
brawny man strangling a lion. The lion 
watched him, and then he said: Tf lions were 
painters, as the sons of Adam are, there would 
be upon that wall a different picture; for it 
would show not a man strangling a lion but, in¬ 
stead, a lion overpowering a man/ 

“The meaning of this fable is that Man can¬ 
not be judged solely by the testimony and 
standards of his fellow-men.” 

“Truly, thou hast invented a story that would 
break some of the unseemly pride of Man,” 
King David said to him. “Thou art indeed 
very wise. Tell me who thou art, pilgrim from 
Arabia,” 

“My name is Lokman,” replied the slave. 


150 Proverb Stories of Many Lands 

“The people who dwell in the same land as I, 
call me the Black Camel.” 

“ ’T is a name well chosen. Thou art truly a 
black camel, for thou art rare, and thy wisdom 
is more precious to mankind than gold and rich 
jewels. Tell me, if thou canst, Black Camel, 
why thy stories are always in the form of 
fables. ,, 

“Great King, it is because a fable is a bridge 
which leads to truth.” 

Then Lokman went out from the presence of 
King David. And when his business in the city 
of Jerusalem was finished, he journeyed back 
to his home in Arabia. 

Sheik Rejmaa learned of what had happened 
in the kingdom of the Hebrews, and how his 
slave had held converse with the great ruler of 
that land, and he gave Lokman his freedom, 
and portioned off a piece of fertile land for him 
and his family. There the Black Camel lived in 
peace, and invented many more fables, and so 
much wisdom did they contain, that they have 
been repeated through the ages. Some, indeed, 
such as the popular one of “The Hare and the 
Tortoise,” have been wrongfully ascribed to 


The Black Camel 151 

iEsop; it can be proved, however, that they 
originated in the industrious brain of Lokman 
nearly three thousand years ago. And to-day 
they are as vivid and real as they were then, for 
the Black Camel expressed it accurately when 
he said: 

A fable is a bridge which lea 4 s to truth . 






THE GODCHILD OF THE SEA 




THE GODCHILD OF THE SEA 


S Ef?ORA JOANNA lived in a tiny village 
on the Mar Menor, that large lagoon, sep¬ 
arated by a narrow strip of land from the sea, 
on the west coast of Andalusia, in Spain. She 
was a widow, whose only property was the 
small farm her husband had left her, and, being 
childless, she devoted all her time to the manag¬ 
ing of her few acres, which yielded her a decent 
livelihood. She was known far and near for 
her shrewd business sense and her tireless 
energy. These qualities made her a conspicu¬ 
ous contrast to her languid, slow-moving 
neighbors, who all considered to-morrow as 
good a time for work as to-day, and perhaps a 
little better. 

It was, therefore, a most surprising sight for 
these same neighbors to watch Senora Joanna 
leave her fields one day, fasten the latch on her 
little house, and, mounting her patient ass, turn 
its head toward the south, and pass down the 
155 


156 Proverb Stories of Many Lands 

road at a brisk trot. They shook their heads 
and muttered to one another, or, if that was not 
convenient, to themselves: 

“She might at least have told some one where 
she was going!” 

Not being as indolent as these good folk, let 
us follow Senora Joanna on her journey, and 
satisfy our curiosity with regard to her des¬ 
tination. 

For two hours she jogged along the road, 
arguing frequently with her gallant steed, 
which repeatedly tried to stop by the roadside 
to nibble tempting green grass. Then she came 
to a fork in the path, and turned sharply to the 
west, so that the salt, cool breeze from the sea 
blew directly in her face. By the time the sun 
had mounted to the center of the sky, the ass 
was clattering over the paved streets of the 
town of Palos, and Senora Joanna could hear 
the waves breaking on the sea-shore. 

The good woman drew rein before a large, 
rather handsome residence, and dismounted 
nimbly. A servant opened the heavy door with 
the wrought-iron hinges, even before Senora 
Joanna had raised the knocker, and she passed 


The Godchild of the Sea 157 

inside. What her neighbors did not know, 
and what she might have communicated to us,— 
recognizing that we are no mere idle gossip, 
but a very serious minded biographer,—was 
that this same servant had been sent to the 
senora’s cottage during the night, to summon 
the good woman to the bedside of her sister-in- 
law, Senora Pinzon, who was in great distress. 

Senora Marie Pinzon was a frail, anxious 
little person, the exact opposite of robust Sen- 
ora Joanna, and the cloud of dark foreboding 
that hung over her had completely crushed her 
gentle spirit, and had forced her to take to her 
bed, ill with what nowadays is known as “a 
case of nerves.” 

And indeed, things looked very alarming for 
Senora Maria. Her husband, the wealthy 
owner of many ships, was a fearless navigator, 
who had voyaged as far as men dared go in 
those days, and who had brought home many 
rich cargoes from far-off lands. This time, 
however, he had taken with him his two small 
sons, Martin Alonso and Francisco, who would 
some day be mariners themselves, and had 
sailed away to the islands off the west coast of 


158 Proverb Stories of Many Lands 

Africa which had recently been discovered and 
claimed by Portugal. Naturally enough, the 
Portuguese would be hostile to a fleet of Span¬ 
ish ships bent on plunder (for that was an age 
when men took whatever they could win with 
the sword), and when the ships belonging to 
Pinzon had not returned for seven weeks after 
they were due, Senora Maria gave in to despair. 
To complicate matters still more, a third son 
had been born to Senora Maria during her 
husband’s absence. Week after week the poor 
woman had postponed the christening,—a most 
pompous and important ceremony in the fif¬ 
teenth century,—but the ships flying the Pinzon 
flag had not returned. 

In this extremity of misfortune, Senora 
Maria had sent for her sister-in-law, and on 
Senora Joanna’s substantial shoulder she now 
sobbed out her fears and anguish. 

“I don’t know much about the ships and the 
crews,” Senora Joanna comforted her, “and 
I don’t believe in venturing out of sight of land, 
but I do know my brother, and it will take a 
stormy sea indeed, or a very sturdy Portuguese, 
to get the better of a Pinzon. He ’ll come back 


The Godchild of the Sea 159 

yet, Maria, and so will the two little ones, for 
they are made of the same stuff as he. And if 
they do not come back, you and I will take 
care of the baby, Maria, and the farm will 
have to produce enough for three instead of for 
one.” You see, she was a very sensible woman! 

Senora Maria heaved a sigh of relief. It 
was good to let Joanna manage things for her. 
And at last her weary, troubled eyes closed, and 
she fell sound asleep. Senora Joanna stood at 
the window, deep in thought; there were many 
things for her to think of now. And as she 
pondered, her glance went out over the blue 
waters and rested on a tiny sail on the far hori¬ 
zon, and watched it slowly coming nearer. 

The baby began to cry, and she picked him 
up and held him close, and his plaintive little 
whimper ceased, and he seemed to smile up 
into her face. Senora Joanna had always 
wanted a baby of her own, to love and care for. 
She was a devout, good woman, and she would 
not even have admitted it to herself, but at that 
moment, in her heart of hearts, she almost 
hoped the child’s father might not return, so 
that she might take Maria and this little pink 


160 Proverb Stories of Many Lands 

bundle in her arms back to the lonely farm with 
her. 

But when the baby was asleep once more and 
had been placed in his crib, she returned to the 
window, to find that the speck of sail she had 
been watching in the distance was larger and 
nearer now. It was heading straight for the 
harbor, and a smaller vessel followed in its 
wake. 

And, sure enough, it was the hardy husband 
of Senora Maria who dropped anchor in the 
port of Palos; and his two small sons were with 
him and safe. But even as he set foot on land, 
there was a frown on Pinzon’s brow and a 
curse on his lips; for of the six ships with which 
he had departed he was bringing back only two. 
Four good vessels of his fleet, representing the 
greater part of his fortune, had been tossed 
about blindly in a dense fog, among the un¬ 
familiar Portuguese Islands, till they had struck 
on the rocks, and foundered with their crews, 
near enough together to hear one another’s 
cries for assistance but separated by the ob¬ 
scuring mist, so that they could help neither 
themselves nor their comrades. 


The Godchild of the Sea 161 


Pinzon was a proud and avaricious man, as 
were most of the Spanish adventurers, and to 
have to admit that he had lost most of his 
wealth, filled him with shame and humiliation. 
And when he heard that he was the father of 
a third son, he broke forth with the rage of a 
madman. 

“Why could not this one have been a girl!” 
he muttered between clenched teeth. “To each 
of my sons I have bequeathed, on the day of 
his christening, a ship from my fleet, fully 
manned and equipped, so that when he is grown 
he may be prepared to start out on the quest of 
fortune. Now there remain but two vessels of 
my proud squadron, and they belong, according 
to my promises, to my two elder sons, so that 
to this third one I can give nothing, nothing at 
all! He is as the child of a pauper, a beggar!” 

“He is a Pinzon!” said Senora Joanna, cheer¬ 
fully. “He will make his way, even without 
your help. Give your son luck, and throw him 
into the sea! He will return with his hands 
filled with pearls and gold.” 

These words pleased her brother. 

“Take the child away with you, Joanna,” he 


162 Proverb Stories of Many Lands 

said. “To see him in my home would be a 
constant reproach. Some day, if I can offer 
him what I consider his birthright, I will send 
for him.” 

Senora Maria submitted weakly to this un¬ 
natural arrangement, and so, when Joanna re¬ 
turned to her little farm after a fortnight’s ab¬ 
sence, she carried in her arms a tiny pink bundle 
that seemed to smile up into her face as she 
jogged along the road. Of course her neigh¬ 
bors marveled and made all sorts of comments, 
but they all agreed on one thing: 

“She’s a queer woman, surely; and the 
queerest thing about her is that she discusses 
her affairs with no one.” 

When Vicente Yanez Pinzon (for so the 
baby had been christened) grew out of infancy, 
Senora Joanna set about his training and edu¬ 
cation with her customary vigor. And so, 
reared away from his own family, the child 
developed different traits and a different char¬ 
acter from those of his two brothers. His 
body grew to be sturdy and tall as theirs, and 
his love for the salt sea as keen, but he shared 
Senora Joanna’s simple, honest piety, while they 


The Godchild of the Sea 163 

had their father’s thirst for loot and gain, 
whether gotten by fair means or foul. 

When Vicente was fourteen, he was appren¬ 
ticed to a mariner trading along the coast, and 
for three years went to sea in the small, poorly 
constructed trading-vessels of the time. One 
day he startled his foster-mother. 

“I should like to know,” he said, “all about 
the handling and controlling of a ship,—a big 
ship, like those you tell me my brothers possess, 
—so that some day I might be a pilot, or even a 
captain. I want to go far out to sea, where 
many strange things are, instead of cruising 
forever under the shadow of the coast.” 

“If thou hast a heart to study these things,” 
Senora Joanna answered slowly, “I know where 
thou mayest acquire this learning. It is as a 
true Pinzon that thou hast spoken, and I am 
proud of thee.” 

So she took him next day to the convent of 
La Rabida, which is situated near the town of 
Palos, and placed him in the care of Juan Perez, 
the prior, a man of great learning. In those 
times there were no colleges, and the priests 
were the only men who had the leisure and in- 


164 Proverb Stories of Many Lands 

clination to delve into the wisdom of the an¬ 
cients. And of the priests living in Spain dur¬ 
ing the illustrious reign of Ferdinand and Isa¬ 
bella, few had as wide a knowledge or as broad 
a vision as Friar Juan Perez. 

There was another source of learning waiting 
for Vicente. That greatest of all means of 
spreading information, the printing-press, had 
recently been invented, and the wealth of 
knowledge of the most eminent scholars was 
available to any man who learned to read. And 
so it was that the opinions of Aristotle, Pliny, 
and Strabo, with regard to the earth,—its 
shape, size, and the distribution of bodies of 
land and water,—were all studied with eager¬ 
ness by Vicente, the while the good friar taught 
him the art of making maps and charts and 
guiding a ship over the dark seas of night, with 
the aid of the compass. There was much to 
learn, and at the age of nineteen, in the year 
1490, Vicente was still engrossed in his studies 
at La Rabida. 

Now, it happened one day that young Pinzon 
was sitting in the sunny garden of the convent, 
reading a book of ancient science, when he 


The Godchild of the Sea 165 

heard a ring at the little gate by the road. He 
went to see who might be there, and found a 
man standing in the dusty road. The stranger's 
clothes were simple, and even a bit shabby, but 
his lofty brow and modest but dignified bearing 
proclaimed him to be a gentleman of uncommon 
attainments. The man was leading a little child 
by the hand, and the child was crying quietly 
to himself* 

“I am a poor traveler," said the man, “pass¬ 
ing through a strange country; and my child is 
weary and crying for food. Can I procure here 
for him a bit of bread and a goblet of water 
from the well, so that he may be refreshed, and 
permit me to continue my journey ?” 

“Enter, stranger, and welcome," Vicente an¬ 
swered, and held wide the gate. “I will fetch 
you food and drink for the child." 

Then he led the foreigner (for the man's ac¬ 
cent proclaimed him the son of another land) 
to the garden-seat, and himself hurried into 
the priory, and returned presently with food 
for the child. And while the little one ate and 
rested, Vicente engaged the stranger in con¬ 
versation, and learned something of his re- 


166 Proverb Stories of Many Lands 

markable story. The sun settled behind the 
hills, and still they talked, for the stranger 
found in young Pinzon an intelligent and will¬ 
ing listener, and the youth’s spirit and imagina¬ 
tion were set afire by what he heard. The 
stranger’s was a mighty project and a mighty 
ambition, surely; for the man sitting in the con¬ 
vent garden at La Rabida was none other than 
Christopher Columbus. 

At last, Vicente went in search of Friar 
Perez. Had not the animated conversation in 
the little garden taken place that summer eve¬ 
ning, the pages of history with which we are 
so familiar, had been written quite differently. 

Columbus was much discouraged, and with 
sufficient cause, indeed! He had spent several 
precious years trying to win the support of 
the government of his native city, Genoa, for 
his stupendous project; then he had sought 
help in Portugal. Now Spain, after encourag¬ 
ing him with promises of assistance in carrying 
out his cherished plans, was letting him go, to 
seek his luck at the court of France. 

That night Columbus and his small son slept 
at La Rabida. Indeed, the good friar kept them 


The Godchild of the Sea 167 

there for many days. Meanwhile, he called 
upon his friends to consider the enterprise of 
discovery on which Columbus had set his heart. 

“Let me go to Palos, master,” begged Vi¬ 
cente. “I have there my father and brothers, 
who possess ships and have sailed far and often 
upon the sea. Perhaps they will feel, when they 
hear Sehor Colon as I have heard him, that 
his plan is great and wonderful!” 

Friar Perez, who was convinced of the feas¬ 
ibility of Columbus’s project, and who left no 
stone unturned that might prove of assistance 
to his inspired guest, agreed to let Vicente visit 
his father’s home in Palos. Of course, Senora 
Joanna accompanied him thither. Her love for 
the youth had increased with the years, and 
when she saw that his heart was set on helping 
this stranger, she readily lent her support. 

It was not so easy to interest the Pinzons of 
Palos in the scheme. Vicente’s father was old, 
and satisfied to spend his days at home before 
the warm fire; his days of adventure were 
over. He had, indeed, retrieved his lost for¬ 
tune and was wealthy again, and though Vi¬ 
cente knew nothing of it, a ship for the youngest 


168 Proverb Stories of Many Lands 

of his three sons was being built that very mo¬ 
ment by the most skilful shipwright of the busy 
port. 

Martin Alonso and Francisco were most 
skeptical at first. The idea of sailing due west 
into great Oceanus, about which nothing was 
known, for the purpose of proving that the 
earth was round, and possibly reaching the 
continent of Asia, seemed to them an idle 
dream, fraught with danger, and almost sure 
to fail. It was only when Vicente glowingly 
pictured the riches of the Orient—the gold of 
Cathay, or China, the spices growing in Cip- 
ango, as Japan was then called, and the jewels 
to be found in India—that their greedy na¬ 
tures were appealed to. They agreed it might 
be profitable to join this enterprise and bring 
home untold wealth. So they returned to La 
Rabida with Vicente, and met Columbus, and 
they promised to help him and sail with him on 
his voyage. 

As you have read in your histories, it was not 
till two years later, in 1492, that Columbus, with 
the untiring aid of Friar Juan Perez, won the 


The Godchild of the Sea 169 

approval of King Ferdinand and Queen Isa¬ 
bella, and secured from them a promise to sup¬ 
ply seven-eighths of his equipment and ex¬ 
penses, provided he could furnish the other 
eighth himself. 

But no crew could be assembled. No Spanish 
sailors, bold men that they were, dared ship on 
so wild and ruinous a venture., In vain Colum¬ 
bus argued and appealed. 

And then came Vicente’s twenty-first birth¬ 
day. He was summoned to Palos, to the home 
of his father, and the whole town took part 
in the celebration that awaited him there. And 
on that day he was made possessor and com¬ 
mander of the gallant little ship, the Nina, that 
strained at her anchor in the harbor, ready to 
respond to the gentlest breeze that might blow 
over the blue waters. 

“Father, may I offer my ship and my crew to 
Senor Colon and the great adventure?” were 
Vicente’s first words. 

“Thou art a man now,” old Pinzon answered. 
“Thou shalt decide for thyself.” 

“Yea, let us sail to the westward with 


170 Proverb Stories of Many Lands 

Columbus!” shouted the two brothers. “Let us 
gather gold and jewels from Cathay, and win 
fresh glories for immortal Spain!” 

In Vicente’s generous proffer and the zeal 
and fearlessness of the three Pinzon brothers 
Columbus’s hope lay. Thus, though the name 
of Vicente Yanez Pinzon has almost passed into 
obscurity, it may truly be said that but for 
him Columbus would not have sailed from Palos 
on that sunny third of August in 1492, with the 
three dauntless little ships, the Santa Maria, the 
Pint a and the Nina. Columbus himself com¬ 
manded the first of these; Martin Alonzo Pin¬ 
zon was captain of the second, with his brother 
Francisco as pilot; and Vicente guided (the 
Nina , his own ship, on that momentous voyage 
westward. 

There is no need for me to tell again the de¬ 
tails of a story that you have heard many times 
repeated. The tribulations and the suffering, 
more of mind than of body, experienced by 
those brave men through the long days and 
nights; the plottings and murmurings of the 
crews, which only the greatest tact and vigi¬ 
lance on the part of the captains could keep in 


The Godchild of the Sea 171 

check—all this but heightened the joy when 
land was sighted on October twelfth. 

And then followed amazement at the strange 
and wonderful things they saw. When we 
allow our imaginations full play, we can feel 
some of the emotions the navigators experi¬ 
enced. The calm and pleasant climate, the bril¬ 
liant blue of sky and sea, the rich and luxuriant 
growth of vegetation, and the simple, kindly 
habits of the natives caused Columbus to write 
several times in his journal: “One could wish 
to live in these islands forever!” 

As you know, these men lived and died in 
the belief that they had visited the islands to 
the east of Asia, and their surprise was great 
at not finding the stores of wealth they had been 
told existed there. It was, no doubt, the quest 
for gold which prompted Martin Alonso Pinzon 
(whose nature was ever mercenary) to separate 
from the others as the little fleet was cruising 
among the islands, and go searching on his 
own account for the rich land of Cipango. 
His behavior was in absolute violation of 
Columbus’s orders, and was the first proof of 
the disloyalty of this greedy man. Vicente 


172 Proverb Stories of Many Lands 

suffered great shame and humiliation from the 
misconduct of his brother; it is said that never 
again did a word pass between the two. 

After more than six weeks, when Columbus 
set sail for Spain, on board the Nina (for the 
Santa Maria had been shipwrecked and lost), 
the Pinta hove in sight, and Martin Alonso 
tried with empty excuses to explain his deser¬ 
tion of his leader. Columbus, feeling too grate¬ 
ful to Vicente to chide his brother, accepted the 
latter’s explanation, and bade him follow on the 
route to Spain. 

But in the course of the return voyage, a fear¬ 
ful tempest broke, and the tiny ships were 
tossed about and nearly swallowed by the huge 
billows. And during this storm the Pinta 
again passed out of sight, perhaps driven by the 
furious winds, but more likely in accordance 
with her Captain’s purpose; for Martin Alonso 
hoped to reach Spain before Columbus, and 
claim the discovery of the westward passage as 
his own.. 

It is a fact of singular justice that on the 
evening of the very day that Columbus dropped 
anchor in the port of Palos, and was received 


The Godchild of the Sea 173 

on land with great rejoicing, the Pint a reached 
the harbor also. When Martin Alonso beheld 
the emblem of Columbus floating from the 
mast of the Nina in the little port, he ordered 
his sails furled, and slunk into the harbor like 
a thief in the nighty 

Indeed, the glory and honor paid Columbus 
was a stinging reproach to this treacherous 
Pinzon, for he could not share in the happy 
welcome home. He hid himself in his house 
and brooded on his ignominious position, till, a 
few days after his return, he caught a violent 
fever and died within a week. 

Our loyal Vicente, on the other hand, parti¬ 
cipated in the celebrations at Palos, and later 
at the court at Barcelona, and, though he had 
not brought back with him the riches of the 
Orient, he always rejoiced that he had given of 
his labor, his time, and his fortune to the 
memorable expedition. 

Many years later Vicente Pinzon again vis¬ 
ited the new world to the westward, and skirted 
the coast of Brazil three full months before 
Cabral, the Portuguese navigator, credited with 
the discovery of this land, reached its shores. 


174 Proverb Stories of Many Lands 

From this voyage Vicente returned with a 
considerable fortune. As soon as he landed in 
Spain, he betook himself to that dearest of his 
kinsfolk, his aunt Joanna. She was old and 
blind now, but her shrunken frame trembled 
with joy as she put her arms about his stalwart 
form and kissed his tanned and rugged brow. 

“Thou hast accomplished all I had wished 
for,” she whispered, “for thou hast made thy 
name illustrious, and still hast kept thy honor 
and thy heart unsullied. As for the rest, it is 
as I prophesied to your father long ago. 

And the fisher-folk of Spain repeat to this 
very day the words she had spoken: 

Give your son luck and throw him into the 
sea. 


THE LOTUS-FLOWER OF THE JUMNA 



















THE LOTUS-FLOWER OF THE JUMNA 


T HE Jumna River is broad, and it flows 
steadily and swiftly. Though it rises in 
the far north of India, among the mighty 
Himalaya Mountains, the greater part of its 
course lies through an arid, sandy plain, where 
its banks alone are fair and verdant. But in 
the end, when it has swept past rich cities and 
refreshed countless gardens, its clear waters 
mingle with those of the Ganges, and swell the 
volume of that river, which the Hindus call 
sacred. 

Kites and vultures wheeled and dipped above 
the stream, and then swung, almost motionless, 
high up in the sky. Their keen eyes ever fol¬ 
lowed a small white object tossing on the sur¬ 
face of the water,—a reed basket floating with 
the current,—and as it traveled along, they 
hung always directly above it, waiting. A 
desert lion stood upon the river-bank, and his 
177 


178 Proverb Stories of Many Lands 

quivering nostrils caught the scent of the object 
on the river, and his eager tongue brushed the 
long, bristling whiskers on the sides of his pow¬ 
erful jaws. He was not like the kites and vul¬ 
tures, which would not touch their prey while 
it lived; but to reach the reed basket he would 
have to swim out to mid-stream, and, like all 
of his kind, he feared the touch of water. And 
as he stood upon the bank like a statue molded 
of the yellow sand, the basket floating on the 
waters moved along swiftly with the stream, 
and a pathetic little wail rose from it—a wail 
that was heard by none but the lion and the 
vultures. 

Within the reed basket a baby girl lay 
wrapped in delicate muslin and soft, rich silks, 
and she had been sent out alone upon the jour¬ 
ney to Paradise, to which the Hindu people be¬ 
lieve the waters of the Sacred River lead. We 
do not know who the parents of the baby may 
have been, nor from what village in the north 
she came; the abandoning of girl babies was a 
common custom in that land, and no doubt the 
kites and vultures had watched many similar 
white objects floating down the river.. But we 


The Lotus-Flower of the Jumna 179 

do know that this particular baby came of a 
wealthy family, for the trimmings of her basket 
were most costly; and we also know that the 
Hindu mother loved her helpless babe, for with 
the greatest care and solicitude the child had 
been prepared for the voyage to the Life Be¬ 
yond. Beside the child in the basket stood a 
handsome lota, a brass bowl used for cere¬ 
monial washing, and within the bowl was a 
great shining stone, an offering to the gods, to 
insure their acceptance of the tiny life. 

In the late afternoon, as it approached the 
city of Agra, the basket struck an eddy in the 
river and was whirled round and round and 
then tossed in toward the edge of the stream, 
under the low-lying bank. More and more 
slowly it floated, and at last came to rest among 
the water-lily pads and lotus-flowers of a quiet 
pool, 

A Hindu woman was bathing in the pool. 
She made a cup of her hand, and lifted the cool 
water to her throat and face; and she chanted a 
strange melody that was very sorrowful. As 
she turned to come out of the water, she saw a 
white object a short way up the river, and she 


180 Proverb Stories of Many Lands 

parted the lily-pads in her path and waded over 
to it. When she lifted the dainty cover of the 
basket and saw the flower-like beauty of the 
tiny child within, she uttered a half-choked cry 
of joy. Then she whispered: 

“I should not lift thee, little one, from the 
river, nor interrupt thy journey to Paradise, 
for thou wouldst make a beauteous blossom in 
the gardens of the god Shiva, the Destroyer! 
But my mistress shall see thy lovely face, and 
perhaps take comfort from thee in her grief and 
longing. And out of her great riches she can 
propitiate thy gods and mine, that they may let 
thee stay upon this earth!” 

Then she raised the basket from the water 
and balanced it carefully upon her head and 
climbed with it out of the pool. Upon the bank 
she deftly exchanged her wet garment for a dry 
one, and proceeded to a great building of pink 
sandstone upon the hill. Cautiously she made 
her way through the long corridors, so that no 
one might see her and the strange burden she 
carried. Into the zenana, or harem, she passed, 
and then slipped quietly into the private cham¬ 
ber of her mistress, Buran Khan, the favorite 


The Lotus-Flower of the Jumna 181 

wife of the great Asaf Khan, who was the 
mighty general of Shah Jahangir’s army. 

Here, on a couch, her mistress lay weeping 
and moaning., Wali, the Hindu woman, ap¬ 
proached the couch and knelt beside it. She 
held the beautiful baby in her arms, and again 
its tiny voice uttered a plaintive cry. The great 
lady on the couch started, and stopped weeping; 
then she turned, and held out her arms, and 
when they had closed about the small form, a 
lovely smile shone on her face. 

“You have restored my babe to life,” she 
whispered. “Oh, Wali! you possess wondrous 
powers of magic!” 

“Nay, my lady, it is not so; for your babe lies 
dead, and no power that I possess can give it 
life again. But Allah, whom you worship, and 
Krishna, to whom I pray, have given you an¬ 
other infant, in place of the one they took from 
you.” 

Buran Khan looked at the child for a long 
time, silently. 

“This is a Hindu baby, Wali, that you have 
rescued from the river,” she said at length. 
“Surely you would not suggest that I should 


182 Proverb Stories of Many Lands 

take the child as my own!” Her voice shook 
with agitation. 

“The Hindu idea, my lady,” the woman 
answered her, “is that the lotus, wherever it 
grows, is beautiful and pure.” 

There was a pause; then Buran Khan laid 
her hand on Wali’s shoulder. 

“No one need ever know, good Wali—no one 
but you and me—that this is not the little one I 
have just lost?” she whispered. 

“Your servant’s lips are locked upon your 
secret forever, my lady,” Wali assured her. 
“May the beautiful child thrive and grow, and 
bring you joy!” 

So it was that the Hindu god Shiva and the 
vultures circling above the river were cheated 
of a fair little being upon whom they had nearly 
closed their grasp. Shiva was enriched in an¬ 
other fashion by Buran Khan, for she gave a 
large, sparkling emerald from her own per¬ 
sonal jewels, which was set in the stone fore¬ 
head of an image of the Hindu god, in a near¬ 
by temple. She also gave bounteously to the 
Mohammedan molla, or priest, who recited 


The Lotus-Flower of the Jumna 183 

prayers for her from the opposite side of a lat¬ 
tice carved of marble, nearer than which he 
dared not approach. 

But the brilliant gem which the real mother 
of the child had placed within the brass lota 
when her baby was consigned to the river and 
the gods—with that gem Buran Khan would 
not part, but kept it carefully hidden, where 
only she might gaze upon its beauty. She lit¬ 
tle dreamed of the real value of the stone, or 
its history, and the Hindu mother up in the 
northlands probably had never guessed it 
either, but it was destined one day to become a 
jewel famed throughout the world. 

When Asaf Khan returned from the wars he 
found himself the father of a particularly beau¬ 
tiful baby girl, and his dearly loved wife Buran 
was very happy and proud. They named the 
child Arjmand Bann, and when she grew older 
she was so beloved by the entire household that 
she was called by every one “The Begum,”— 
“begum” being a title given to ladies of high 
rank. She had the most enchanting ripple of a 
laugh, and a soft voice that was nearly always 


184 Proverb Stories of Many Lands 

singing. And her little mind was alert and 
keen, and her heart was running over with lov¬ 
ing kindness. 

Until she was nine years old she was per¬ 
mitted considerable freedom, and played with 
her half-sisters and half-brothers,—the chil¬ 
dren of Asaf Khan’s other and less favored 
wives,—and with the children of the royal 
court. She knew that after her ninth birthday 
she would be kept very strictly in the zenana, in 
accordance with Mahommedan custom, and so 
she danced and frolicked while she might, with 
all the abandon of youth and high spirits. And 
always the Hindu woman Wali, the silent one, 
stood near her and watched over her, and 
smiled at her childish pranks. 

Around the palace of Shah Jahangir storm- 
clouds were gathering and danger lurked. His 
rule was hard and cruel, and his subjects feared 
and hated him with a bitterness that threatened 
revolt. The mighty empire which his father, 
the great Akbar, had conquered, and then gov¬ 
erned with such wisdom and understanding, 
writhed under the injustices and humiliations 
imposed upon it by the arrogant Jahangir. The 


The Lotus-Flower of the Jumna 185 

Hindus of high caste and the nobles who had 
held office under Akbar and helped him admin¬ 
ister his realm, had all been supplanted by Mo¬ 
hammedan favorites of the shah, and resent¬ 
ment smoldered in their breasts. But Jahangir 
remained wilfully blind to the growing discon¬ 
tent of his people, whose grievances daily in¬ 
creased., 

At last, upon a day of stifling heat, the 
patience of the downtrodden ones broke. A 
huge crowd gathered,—people from every cor¬ 
ner of the city,—and swarmed about the walls 
of the palace. The sound of their threatening 
voices echoed through the corridors and struck 
the first note of dread in the cruel heart of 
Jahangir. He looked about him at his courtiers 
and wondered how loyally they would defend 
him< 

Then into the silent room there rushed an 
aged man. His body was stripped of clothes, 
and his eyes gleamed with the intensity of re¬ 
ligious zeal. He strode up to the shah and 
stood before him, pointing his lean finger into 
the very face of the monarch. 

“Oppressor of my people! Tyrant of this 


186 Proverb Stories of Many Lands 

land!” He hissed the words, and his body 
writhed like that of an angry serpent. “We can 
bear your heavy rule no longer. The people of 
the city are waiting outside your gates, ready 
to storm the palace. And they will have small 
mercy upon you and your followers. You have 
levied taxes upon us till we have nothing more 
to give; you have taken from us our lands, our 
families, our religion. In the name of the 
thousands who hate you, I warn you to flee 
from this city, with all your court, before the 
day is done. 

“It is only our love of your father, the great 
Akbar, that makes us thus lenient to you,” the 
old man went on; “for the sight of your wicked 
heart plucked from your stony breast would be 
a welcome one to the people of Agra! May 
never son of yours, nor kin of any kind, rule 
over us, until the Sacred Tulwar, the sword 
forged by Indra and bestowed upon our city, 
be restored to its magnificence, and returned to 
the hands of my people!” 

That evening, in the gray of twilight, a long 
train of horsemen, palanquins carefully cur¬ 
tained, and pack-animals heavily burdened, 


The Lotus-Flower of the Jumna 187 

wound its way to the northwest, over the great 
Rajputana desert. And so the court of Shah 
Jahangir was established in Lahore; and here 
his children, and those of his followers, grew to 
manhood and womanhood. 

Of Jahangir’s sons, only Prince Jahan had 
the respect and love of the people. He was the 
favorite son of Jahangir’s favorite wife, Nur 
Mahal, and the mother fostered in the young 
prince those qualities of clear thinking and tol¬ 
eration for which Indian history honors her* 
From his early youth, because of the wicked¬ 
ness of his father (for Jahangir had soon for¬ 
gotten the lesson learned at Agra) Prince Jahan 
had been estranged from the shah. And this 
breach between father and son widened ever 
more and more, for Jahangir ruled his children 
as sternly as he did his people* 

It was through the influence of Nur Mahal, 
the one person whom Jahangir respected and 
loved, that a betrothal of Prince Jahan with the 
playmate of his early childhood, The Begum, 
was arranged. Before the young people could 
be married, however, Jahangir compelled 
Prince Jahan to wed the daughter of Muzaffar 


188 Proverb Stories of Many Lands 

Husain Mirza, in order to seal a political alli¬ 
ance which the shah believed would be of ad¬ 
vantage to him. 

This act of Jahangir’s was the last straw. 
Prince Jahan andj the bride who jhad been 
forced upon him rode forth from the great 
palace in Lahore, and on the prince’s lips there 
was a vow of vengeance against his tyrannical 
father. Straight he went to Asaf Khan, and 
begged anew for the hand of The Begum. 

"If you will let me win my heart’s desire,” he 
said, “I shall feel the joy and strength of a 
hundred men, and I will go forth and gather 
about me all those whom my father has 
wronged and oppressed; and with that countless 
throng I will break the bitter sway of the shah, 
my father!” 

Then Asaf Khan consented, and gave the 
prince his blessing, for he knew that the shah 
had never a friend in all that realm; and he set 
the day for the wedding. Prince Jahan’s heart 
was right glad then, and he put spur to his 
horse and traveled fast from town to town to 
acquaint the people with his brave purpose. 
And the people cheered him and shouted, and 


The Lotus-Flower of the Jumna 189 

drew their swords from the scabbards and 
pledged their support in the army of the prince 
they loved. 

Only Agra, the beautiful city beside the 
Jumna, held aloof. 

“We have vowed,” said the spokesman of the 
city, “that no son of Jahangir, nor any other 
relative of his, shall rule over Agra, until the 
Sacred Tulwar of Indra is made whole: for in 
that we place our faith and hope.” 

The Sacred Tulwar was a huge sword which 
the Hindu people believed had been forged in 
heaven, and to which they ascribed magic 
powers. Many years before, when the Moham¬ 
medan hordes had swept down upon the land, 
the Hindu rajah, seeing that his city and even 
his palace were doomed to fall before the in¬ 
vaders, fled with some of his ministers, and 
they were never seen or heard of by the people 
again. With them they had carried some of 
the contents of the royal treasury; most 
precious of all, the great diamond which had 
formed the hilt of the Sacred Tulwar, and of 
which legend said that it had never been mined 
upon this earth. The sword itself, without a 


190 Proverb Stories of Many Lands 

hilt and therefore quite useless as a weapon, 
had been left behind by Shah Jahangir in his 
flight from Agra, as it had been left by the 
Hindu rajah many years before., 

The failure of Agra to join his standards 
was a sore disappointment to Prince Jahan. 
The city was the fairest one in his father’s 
realm, and the one he had most hoped to win. 
But he had small time to dwell upon this disap¬ 
pointment, for his nuptials with The Begum 
were close at hand. 

When Buran Khan had prepared the beauti¬ 
ful bride for the wedding, she placed in the 
hands of this daughter she had reared as her 
very own a silver casket wonderfully carved., 

“The jewel within this silver case is pecu¬ 
liarly your own, my little one,” she said. “I have 
kept it for you very carefully since you were a 
tiny baby. And now I add it to the dowry that 
your good father gives with you. May it be a 
talisman of good fortune and happiness to you, 
as it has been to me ever since it came into my 
life!” And she kissed The Begum fervently* 

Thus it was that the great, brilliant stone 
which had lain in the brass lota beside the little 


The Lotus-Flower of the Jumna 191 

child, on the voyage down the river, came into 
the possession of Prince Jahan. Its astonishing 
size and the clarity of its sparkling depths con¬ 
vinced the happy prince that the wonderful 
diamond was the very one which had been taken 
from the hilt of Agra’s magical tulwar., 

Not many moons passed before that diamond 
was fitted once more into the empty groove in 
the hilt of the sword, and it blazed in the sun¬ 
light as it was carried through the streets of 
Agra at the head of the triumphal procession of 
Shah Jahan and his court when they entered 
the city. For the young prince had met with 
scarcely any opposition in establishing his 
dominion over the entire realm of his father, 
and with great acclaim had been crowned em¬ 
peror. And the ignoble Shah Jahangir had 
been banished from the land. 

A proclamation went out upon that day of 
coronation that The Begum should henceforth! 
be known by the name of Mumtaz Mahal, 
which means “Crown 'of the Palace,” with 
the added title of Empress of India. And Shah 
Jahan placed in her hands the royal seal, which 
she alone might use, so that every document of 


192 Proverb Stories of Many Lands 

state must receive the sanction and approval of 
the empress. Never was great power put to 
more kindly and beneficent use, for Mumtaz 
Mahal felt a bond of sympathy with the Hindu 
people of the land, which we, having been let 
into the secret of her birth, can readily under¬ 
stand. Her charity, her gentleness, and her 
remarkable beauty made her truly the Crown 
of the Palace, and as such Shah Jahan loved and 
cherished her, so that the romance of their 
lives is the most ideal love-story of India. 

As for the Sacred Tulwar, I can find no ac¬ 
curate record of its later history, but it seems 
that the blade was either lost or destroyed dur¬ 
ing the Persian invasion at the beginning of 
the eighteenth century. Only the wonderful 
diamond remains; we call it the Koh-i-noor, 
which means Mountain of Light, and part of 
it shines forth to-day in the crown of mighty 
England. 

Shah Jahan’s reign was a peaceful one. He 
gladly turned from the life of a warrior to that 
of a philanthropist and a patron of art, and to 
his love of beauty and his sense of graceful 


The Lotus-Flower of the Jumna 193 

symmetry we owe the masterpiece of Indian 
architecture, before which every traveler to 
that land stands in rapt amazement. 

When the lovely empress Mumtaz Mahal 
died, in the year 1631, Shah Jahan was stricken 
with grief. Nevermore did he enter the harem, 
nor wear colored dress, or jewels. Had he not 
considered kingship a sacred duty, he would 
willingly have laid aside his scepter, and led the 
simple, religious life of a Mohammedan priest. 

There remained only one tribute he could pay 
to his beloved, and by his order twenty thou¬ 
sand workmen labored for twenty years to con¬ 
struct a fitting tomb for the Crown of his 
palace. The Taj Mahal, most exquisite of 
earthly resting-places, stands as the result of 
their skill and of Shah Jahan’s dream of beauty 
and love. 

When you wander out from the city of Agra 
on a placid moonlit night to view this wonder¬ 
ful shrine, its white marble and alabaster will 
shimmer like an opal of a hundred tints, and its 
slender minarets, mirrored in the cypress- 
bordered pool, will enrapture you with their 


194 Proverb Stories of Many Lands 

sublimity. It was as I stood just so that my 
Hindu guide whispered to me the story I have 
here recounted, 

“When the remains of the great empress 
were brought to this place and laid under the 
stone,” he concluded, “Wali, a tottering old 
Hindu woman, stumbled along in the funeral 
procession, and an ancestor of mine, who was 
near to her, heard her mutter these words, 
which my people repeat to this very day: 

“The lotus, wherever it grows, is beautiful 
and purej f 


THE LONG HUNTER LIFTS HIS GUN 








THE LONG HUNTER LIFTS HIS GUN 


H OW the child, from his very infancy, came 
to call his parents Father John and 
Mother Martha, it would be difficult to say, 
since they really were his parents, and, logically 
enough, the only ones he had. Equally odd is 
the fact that they called him “little Ben,” even 
after he had become a full-grown lad, rather 
above the average size and proudly conscious 
of his thriving young beard. 

But “little Ben” he certainly was in his child¬ 
hood ; and very small indeed he must have been 
when the pig jumped clean over his head at the 
country fair. That remained the earliest of 
his recollections, and many years later, when he 
stalked over the mountains on hunting-expedi¬ 
tions, he would sometimes make the forest ring 
with laughter, at the memory of it. 

People in Virginia were gay in those days, 
even along the western border, where life was 
197 


198 Proverb Stories of Many Lands 

very primitive and fraught with constant dan¬ 
ger. They loved to play jokes, and were not 
resentful when jokes were played on them; and 
they were always ready for a horse-race or a 
shooting-match, or any kind of sport. Father 
John took keen delight in all these things, and 
so he and Mother Martha and little Ben trav¬ 
eled many miles to attend a country fair. 

One of the amusements offered there was 
called “the scamper,” when several pigs were 
let loose among the crowd. The rule of the 
game was that these pigs must be caught by 
their tails only, and these tails were well 
greased, so that they slipped again and again 
through clutching fingers. The squealing of 
the frightened animals rushing to and fro be¬ 
tween the legs of people in the crowd, upsetting 
some of them and splashing others with mud, 
was mingled with the screams of the children 
and the laughter of their elders. And in all this 
confusion one of the pigs jumped right over the 
head of little Ben. Father John caught hold 
of its tail as it landed on the ground, and held 
on so tenaciously that the judges agreed on 
awarding the pig to him as a prize, and it was 


The Long Hunter Lifts His Gun 199 

later carried, in triumph, to the farm in the 
mountains. 

That farm was not much of a farm, to be 
sure. It consisted of a small clearing planted 
with corn and wheat, on the bank of the Blue 
Run, a swift little river, and a crude log cabin 
consisting of one room with a smoky fireplace. 
It was a typical frontier homestead, no worse 
and no better than its neighbors, and it shared 
with them one great advantage over a more 
pretentious estate: when the soil became poor 
or the game moved farther west, it was possible 
to collect the household belongings, choose a 
more favored site, build a new cabin, and start 
all over. 

There was very little money to be found 
among the hill people of Virginia in the year 
1750, when little Ben was twelve years old, 
and the only things of value in a cabin home 
were likely to be some pieces of old pewter, 
brought from England by the settlers, a few 
skins of deer and bear, and a couple of rifles, 
oiled and loaded. It is hard to believe that these 
few poor things could be coveted by any one, 
but often bands of Indians or lawless whites 


200 Proverb Stories of Many Lands 

would descend upon a cabin and steal what 
they could, and every householder was ready to 
guard his small possessions with zeal and at 
the risk of his life. 

It happened once that Father John left home 
to test his skill at a shooting-match to be held 
in Albemarle County. There was much neg¬ 
lected work waiting to be done on the farm, 
but John Cleveland, being a farmer from neces¬ 
sity and not from choice, could easily dismiss 
from his mind the unpleasant thought of weeds, 
whenever an attractive pastime offered itself. 
Mother Martha had coaxed him to carry her 
spinning-wheel along with him and leave it 
three miles down the trail at the cabin of a 
neighbor, with whom she was planning to spend 
the afternoon, taking her younger children 
with her* 

So it was that little Ben was left alone, with 
instructions to hoe three rows of corn and 
study carefully the lessons Mother Martha had 
set him. He applied himself at once to the 
lessons, for, like his father, he had no love for 
the fields. Thirty times he wrote laboriously 
on the strip of birch-bark that served him as a 


The Long Hunter Lifts His Gun 201 

slate, the word “opportunity.” Feeling very 
virtuous and proud of his neat work, he climbed 
upon a stool to place his birch-bark copy-book 
conspicuously above the fireplace. It was as 
he stood thus that the door of the cabin was 
thrown open, and three drunken rowdies 
stepped—or, rather, stumbled—into the room. 
When they saw the child perched upon the stool, 
they pointed their fingers at him and laughed 
immoderately, 

“Since you are alone, Master Cleveland,” said 
one of them, thickly, “we will not ask your 
leave to warm ourselves at the fire,” He lifted 
a wooden bench to his knee, and with his full 
brute strength broke off the sides and base and 
tossed them into the fireplace. 

Little Ben looked about him in dismay. He 
knew what his father would do were he at 
home. His eye wandered for a moment to his 
birch strip with the one word “opportunity” 
thirty times repeated, then passed to the rifle 
resting on hooks in the wall above his head. In 
another instant he had grasped the gun and 
was pointing it at his tipsy visitors. 

“Do you see this, gentlemen?” he asked 


202 Proverb Stories of Many Lands 

simply. His face was flushed and his heart 
thumped, but the small finger ready to press the 
trigger was quite steady, and the aim was true. 

Two of the men, with eyes and mouths wide 
open, stood stupidly staring at him; the third, 
whose mind was less befuddled, perhaps, mut¬ 
tered a nasty oath and moved toward the door. 

“We had best get out quickly,” he said ner¬ 
vously. “The boy is excited, and not to be 
trusted. ,, And he made for the woods as fast 
as his staggering legs would carry him. The 
other two stumbled after him in haste, and 
little Ben was left standing in triumph upon the 
stool, the big gun clasped tightly in his hands. 

That was an exploit which to-day would oc¬ 
casion no end of comment and praise, and a 
modern young hero would no doubt be petted 
beyond all reason by his fond relatives. But 
Benjamin Cleveland lived in a country and 
at a time when a stout heart was bred in every 
lad, and in every lassie too. Father John merely 
nodded his head when he heard the story, for¬ 
bore to administer punishment to his son for 
having failed to hoe the corn, and fitted hooks 


The Long Hunter Lifts His Gun 203 

several inches lower on the wall, to hold the 
gun. 

“Reckon little Ben is old enough,” he re¬ 
marked dryly to Mother Martha, “to carry a 
gun of his own. Mind you keep it oiled and 
cleaned, boy, and don’t waste more powder than 
you have to*” 

And that is all that was said about the matter. 

The rifle, however, became little Ben’s con¬ 
stant companion, and many an adventure did 
he have with it. It did not take him long to 
learn to handle that gun like an expert. We 
should not care to use that sort of rifle nowa¬ 
days, for it required more time to load than we 
could spare in a tight place, but it was one of 
the best of its kind at the time, and many a cot¬ 
ton-tail and wild turkey fell under its fire. 
Later, little Ben ventured farther from home, 
and saved his shot for a bear or an elk whose 
skin he might sell to the trader. Soon the lad 
was earning more from the sale of these skins 
than his father could make from the scanty pro¬ 
duce of the ill-kept farm. 

There was a tract of woodland, several miles 


204 Proverb Stories of Many Lands 

up the river, that abounded in game and had 
been looked upon with covetous eyes by our 
young hunter, for a long time. An old Dutch¬ 
man named Noort held the exclusive right to 
hunt on that tract, and he might easily have 
become prosperous, had he not exchanged most 
of his peltries for brandy at the nearest tavern. 
Noort made a practice of hunting at night by 
torch-light, and he had the reputation of being 
able to shoot straight even after drinking 
heavily. He was very much a braggart, and 
boasted never to have missed a shot. 

Ben, now a tall lad of sixteen, disliked Noort 
heartily, and one day he determined to shake 
the old Dutchman’s conceit. He stripped a 
large piece of bark from a tree, carefully 
trimmed and rounded it, and carried it in the 
late afternoon to Noort’s pine tract. In a 
deep pool, on the banks of which were many 
hoof-prints, Ben deposited the piece of bark, 
which floated on the surface, looking for all 
the world like the back of a handsome young 
buck. Then Ben climbed into the branches of 
a near-by tree and waited. 

When dusk fell, the deer came softly out of 


The Long Hunter Lifts His Gun 205 

the woods to the water, to quench their thirst 
and to stand in the clear pool, where they were 
less tormented by insects. Then through the 
darkness of the forest a flickering light ap¬ 
proached. The old Dutchman was coming to 
hunt his game. Ben, perched in the tree, 
clapped his hands suddenly, and the timid ani¬ 
mals fled in a moment, leaving nothing but 
the piece of bark floating in the water. Arrived 
at the pool, Noort flung his flaring torch from 
side to side. Its light would confuse and blind 
the game until the hunter could raise his gun 
and shoot. At last he spied what seemed to be 
a very fine deer, resting in the water. He shot 
with his accustomed precision, but the animal 
scarcely moved. For a moment Noort stood 
perplexed, then lifted his gun, and, aiming with 
more care, shot again. Still the strange animal 
did not raise itself from the water, nor sink. 
Noort peered into the pool for a moment, and 
then threw up his hands in alarm. 

“It be no deer!” he shrieked. “It be de 
duyvil!” and, dropping his torch, he took to his 
legs without daring once to look behind him. 

Ben grinned and chuckled to himself all the 


206 Proverb Stories of Many Lands 

way home through the Woods, that night. But 
his rough joke bore unexpected fruit, for the 
superstitious Dutchman never again dared set 
his foot in that uncanny pine tract, and Ben 
hunted there undisturbed, for many a long day. 

The spirit of adventure and the joy in new 
sights again and again gripped the heart of 
the boy. One day he set his face eastward, 
where he had been told substantial homes were 
built and tobacco was planted on the rich hill¬ 
sides. He did not go far enough to see the 
really handsome mansions of the wealthy Vir¬ 
ginia planters, for they were all situated near 
the sea-coast. But he gazed in admiration at 
the pretty dwellings he passed, and the culti¬ 
vated fields and hedges, like those his mother 
remembered in old England. He did not know 
what an uncouth figure he cut, trudging along 
the dusty road in his ill-fitting doe-skin jacket 
and heavy fur cap—in the middle of sum¬ 
mer, too!—his gun slung over his back, his little 
hunting-dog at his heels* 

He sat down to rest beside a low picket fence, 
lined with a hedge. On the smooth lawn inside 
the hedge two girls were playing.; One Was a 


The Long Hunter Lifts His Gun 207 

fragile little creature of eight years, too delicate 
to remain long on earth; she was tenderly hand¬ 
ling the pretty flower dolls which her sister was 
fashioning x for her from hollyhocks and pink 
and blue mertensia bells. The child made them 
dance upon the greensward, and laughed when 
they fell on their sides. The older sister 
watched her with delight. She stooped over 
and kissed the little one’s pale brow. 

“I will make you some more fine ladies, 
honey,” she said, “and then we will show them 
how to dance the quadrille.” 

“Let me pluck the flowers!” cried the child, 
and came to within a few feet of the hedge 
where Ben sat watching her. She raised her 
hand to pick some tall hollyhocks, when some¬ 
thing darted through the grass at her feet and 
a great rattlesnake signaled his warning. To 
Ben’s trained ears the sound was unmistakable. 
He sprang to his feet, leaned far over the fence, 
and cast a hastily plucked white rose between 
the helpless child and the angry serpent. Strik¬ 
ing at the missile as it reached the ground, the 
ugly reptile buried its fangs deep in the fra¬ 
grant flower. 


208 Proverb Stories of Many Lands 

The young hunter leaped over the hedge and 
crushed the deadly head with the butt of his 
gun before the snake had time to strike again, 
then lifted the trembling child in his arms. Her 
sister, pale with fright, came running to her, 
and the old negro mammy also, who had been 
sitting at a little distance, crooning a song and 
rocking back and forth. They carried the child 
into the house and laid her on a couch to rest. 
Then Mr. Graves, the father of the two girls, 
and his gentle wife, with tears in their eyes, 
in faltering voices thanked the brave lad, They 
begged him to accept of their hospitality as 
long as he remained in the vicinity, and tried 
to force all manner of valuable presents on 
him.. 

But Ben felt ill at ease in these elegant sur¬ 
roundings, and hastened to depart, though his 
eyes followed pretty Mary, the elder sister, 
about the room, and seemed unable to see aught 
else. 

“If I may be permitted to come again—” 
something prompted him to say. “It is such a 
pleasant journey from the mountains.” 

There were two things he carried away with 


The Long Hunter Lifts His Gun 209 

him: a book called “Hudibras,” written 
by Samuel Butler and published in England, 
which he said would give him more pleasure 
than the suit of fine clothes and the silver shoe 
buckles Mr. Graves offered him, and the picture 
in his memory of a sweet and lovely girl bend¬ 
ing over her frail little sister. 

How often and how carefully Ben read that 
book, we, with countless volumes and periodi¬ 
cals at our disposal, can scarcely understand. 
How often he thought of the plantation in the 
valley, of the smooth lawn, of kindly Mr. 
Graves and his good lady, of the delicate blos¬ 
som of a child, and of sweet Mary, I dare not 
try to guess. I only know that he made the 
“pleasant journey from the mountains” many 
times, and that in the end there traveled back 
with him a radiant and happy bride, and that 
his heart was very glad. 

It was in the year 1762 that Mary Graves 
and Ben Cleveland were married and settled on 
a small farm near Pig River.. But Ben, as you 
can well imagine, made an indifferent farmer, 
and was glad enough for the valid excuse of 
the French and Indian War to drop his hoe 


210 Proverb Stories of Many Lands 

and take up his gun against the enemy that 
threatened destruction to the entire border 
colony. He was a famous shot, even for that 
day of skilled marksmen, and he fought with 
his brain as well as his brawn* 

“ ’T is a bit of good sense I have read in 
‘Hudibras,’ ” he often said, “and it has saved 
my life more than once: 

“For those that fly may fight again 
Which he can never do that’s slain.” 

It may be a brave man who stands out in the 
open and lets himself be shot; but, truly, it is 
a wise man who picks off his enemies and pro¬ 
tects himself at the same time. ,, 

Those words of Samuel Butler’s had become 
the guiding motto of Ben’s life., 

After the war, being so unsuccessful on his 
farm as scarcely to support his wife and chil¬ 
dren, Ben Cleveland determined to seek his 
fortune elsewhere.; In the year 1769 he joined 
with his father-in-law, Mr. Graves, in estab¬ 
lishing a stock-farm beside the Yadkin River, 
in North Carolina* Since Mr. Graves was an 
experienced manager and had several industri¬ 
ous slaves, this venture, needless to say, pros- 


The Long Hunter Lifts His Gun 211 

pered, and left Ben considerable freedom to 
pursue his hunting adventures. 

There were at that time a number of hardy 
spirits—most famous of all, the great Daniel 
Boone—who made extended expeditions and 
were absent from home for long periods at a 
time, so that they were called the Long Hunt¬ 
ers. From Boone himself, who was a neighbor 
of the Clevelands, Ben heard such glowing ac¬ 
counts of the beautiful country to the west¬ 
ward, that in 1772 he could no longer resist the 
call of the wilderness, and in the company of 
four other restless pioneers, set out for the 
lands across the Blue Ridge, which were called 
Kentucky. 

This country, however, did not belong to the 
English colonists, but remained, according to 
solemn treaty, the hunting-grounds of the In¬ 
dians. The little band of white men had scarce¬ 
ly passed through the Cumberland Gap, when a 
terrifying thing happened. 

They had dismounted in order to prepare 
their noonday meal, and were resting in the 
shade of some grand old oaks. : Ben spread 
his blanket and soon fell fast asleep. In a 


212 Proverb Stories of Many Lands 

few minutes he awoke with a start and sat bolt 
upright, his eyes filled with alarm. With the 
caution of the trained woodsman he looked 
about him, and saw that a huge limb of the 
tree under which he lay was broken, and hung 
directly above him, only partly attached to the 
great trunk. 

“Look!” he said to his companion. “See what 
an ugly thing we are camped under.” 

The others laughed carelessly. “It is evi¬ 
dent that that branch has hung just so for many 
months,” they said. “The raw wood is weather 
stained. There is no cause for worry.” 

Ben rose to his feet and picked up his blanket. 

“As surely as it has hung there for a long 
time,” he said, “so surely must it fall in the 
end.” 

He moved over toward his comrades, trailing 
his blanket behind him. At that moment there 
was a sharp crack above, and the heavy limb 
crashed to the ground, pinning the end of his 
blanket beneath its weight. When the men, 
with all their strength, rolled the monster 
branch over, they found that its sharp end had 
been driven fourteen inches into the earth, on 


The Long Hunter Lifts His Gun 213 

the very spot where Cleveland had slept. With 
white faces his friends grasped him by the 
hand, and his prophetic wisdom made him the 
undisputed leader after that. 

That night the five hunters pitched their 
camp for the first time in beautiful Kentucky. 
But the neighing of one of their horses be¬ 
trayed their presence to a party of Cherokee In¬ 
dians, who stealthily surrounded and captured 
them. For some strange reason, the Indians 
neither killed nor scalped their prisoners, ac¬ 
cording to their barbarous custom, but stripped 
them all of their belongings—their horses, 
guns, ammunition, and even shoes and caps— 
and ordered them out of the red man's land. A 
single old firelock was given them in exchange, 
and two rounds of shot. The long journey 
back to their homes had to be made with no 
other means of procuring food than these two 
gun charges; and it is said that when they 
reached the white settlements, they were quite 
exhausted and on the point of starvation. 

But Ben Cleveland had no peace of mind. 

“I have been spared," said he, “so that I 
might fight again. And I will try to recover 


214 Proverb Stories of Many Lands 

my good horse and the gun my father gave me 
when I was a boy.” 

A few of his neighbors were eager to join 
him in his delicate undertaking, and cheerfully 
followed him over the difficult trail, back to 
Kentucky* Once there, however, Cleveland 
separated himself from his party and made his 
way alone and on foot to a Cherokee village. 
He laid his grievance before Big Bear, the 
chief., 

“The tribe that stole your horse and gun,” 
said Big Bear, “will surely kill you if they 
know for what you have come. But you are 
a brave fighter, and so should be killed only by 
another equally brave, and since I am the 
mightiest warrior of the Cherokees, I alone 
have the right to kill you. Therefore I will 
protect you from the others.” 

So Big Bear gave him a guard of Indians, 
and they set out in quest of the stolen belong¬ 
ings. From village to village they searched, 
till at last they located the handsome young 
horse and the time-worn rifle, in the possession 
of a battle-scarred veteran brave. 

“If you think to take from me what I have 


The Long Hunter Lifts His Gun 215 

rightfully won,” cried this fearless red man, 
dropping to his knee and aiming the gun 
straight at Cleveland, “I will kill you with 
your own weapon!” 

One of Big Bear's men threw Cleveland 
suddenly to the ground, just in time to avoid the 
shot of the angry Indian, which pierced through 
the white man's jacket but did him no bodily 
harm* Before the Indian could reload, Cleve¬ 
land sprang to the back of his horse, which 
stood nearby; and, as he dashed off, he stooped 
from his galloping steed and snatched the rifle 
from the hands of the crouching red thief* 

So he rode back to Big Bear, and later to his 
companions* 

“I have got what is mine,” he said. “Now let 
us return to our own country, and leave to the 
Indian what is his.” 

They journeyed back to North Carolina, and 
Cleveland never again hunted in Kentucky. 

Indeed, his hunting days were nearly over. 
But that was no less because the herds of elk 
and buffalo were moving ever westward, than 
because a most thrilling part of the history of 
our country was being enacted, and a man of 


216 Proverb Stories of Many Lands 

Ben Cleveland's temperament could not for long 
keep out of the fray. 

Soon the tidings of Lexington and Bunker 
Hill reached the frontiersmen on the southwest¬ 
ern border. Cleveland knew that the British 
officials were exacting unreasonable taxes, and 
were unjust and tyrannous in their rule. Other 
men saw this too, and thus that territory, like all 
the others, was soon divided into two camps, 
the Tory and the Whig, and there was bitter 
enmity between them. 

Under the unstable government, lawlessness 
was rampant, and conditions forced honest men 
to rise in rebellion. The settlers of Wilkes 
County soon turned to Ben Cleveland as their 
natural leader. With his volunteer militia he 
scoured the land, summarily disposed of out¬ 
laws by hanging them from the nearest tree, 
and conducted an intermittent warfare with the 
Tory loyalists. 

In 1778, he was made colonel of the militia, 
and the head justice of his county, and so his 
leadership became official. And it was in this 
capacity that his greatest service to his country 
was performed. 


The Long Hunter Lifts His Gun 217 

The British had suffered one repulse after 
another in the North, and were finally driven 
to the Southern colonies, where they rallied 
around Cornwallis, gathered together all the 
staunch loyalists they could muster, and soon 
had a formidable army. Several successful en¬ 
counters so encouraged Cornwallis that he sent 
a threatening message to the western frontier, 
demanding that the men come under his stand¬ 
ard or accept his challenge of battle. That mes¬ 
sage fired the entire border. 

The hardy woodsmen, to whom freedom had 
always been a very real thing, quickly armed 
themselves. Their leaders decided to make 
an attack on the British commander, Colonel 
Ferguson, who was marching with more than 
eleven hundred men through South Carolina,— 
before that able warrior might expect them. 
Ferguson's scouts, however, brought him the 
news that the backwoodsmen were coming. 

“Let them come!” cried the colonel. “They 
are but a handful of mountain rats, without any 
training, and with no conception of military 
tactics. We will array ourselves on yonder 
height, and when we shoot down among the 


218 Proverb Stories of Many Lands 

dogs, they will cower and sneak back to their 
homes in the woods!” He laughed as he pic¬ 
tured their discomfiture. 

But the battle that was fought on King’s 
Mountain did not prove to be quite so simple. 

Colonel Benjamin Cleveland, at the head of 
the “Bulldogs of Wilkes County,” as they were 
called, spoke to his men before he led them into 
action, and what he said has become historic. 

“Every man must consider himself an offi¬ 
cer,” he cried, “and act from his own judgment. 
Fight as the Indian fights, and take advantage 
of every tree and rock and bush. Strike as 
many of the enemy as you can, but do not let 
the enemy strike you; for remember, you can 
serve only as long as you are alive and whole!” 

The frontiersmen formed into four separate 
columns and ascended the mountain from 
north, south, east and west. Their rough coon- 
skin caps and their deadly hunting-rifles bris¬ 
tled behind tree trunks and boulders in every 
direction, and the British in their red coats 
were pitifully conspicuous targets. But they 
fought like men, and several times the woods¬ 
men gave way before them. 


The Long Hunter Lifts His Gun 219 

“Retreat to cover 1 ” Cleveland would shout. 
“ 'He who flies may fight again, which he can 
never do that's slain 1’ ” 

And sure enough, he always led them back 
into the fray, and each time they advanced a 
little farther. 

Ferguson's position on the broad summit of 
King's Mountain would have been ideal had he 
been fighting an enemy employing the military 
tactics of that day; but the “rats from the 
woods" fought like the Indians, and surrounded 
their foe as they would have encircled a herd 
of game. Closer and closer they pressed, and 
when at last brave Ferguson fell from his horse 
and expired, the loyalists knew that their cause 
was lost, and they surrendered. 

That battle blighted the hopes of Cornwallis 
and though it has been less often described in 
verse and story than some of the conflicts that 
preceded it or came after, it stands in the light 
of the present day as a crisis in the American 
Revolution, turning the tide of war definitely 
against the British, and safeguarding the inde¬ 
pendence of our young nation. 

The frontiersmen returned to their wood 3 


220 Proverb Stories of Many Lands 

and mountains and their several duties, leaving 
the affairs of state to minds better fitted for 
such work than their own. But they had done 
their bit well, and deserve our gratitude—not 
least among them the gallant Ben Cleveland, 
who had led his “Bulldogs” to victory. That 
he was honored and idolized by his men is 
proved by the fact that to him was awarded 
Ferguson’s powerful war-horse, and also, as a 
trophy, an old snare-drum, of which he was 
very proud, and on which he scrawled (for he 
was no great scholar) the words of his favorite 
proverb: 

Those that fly may tight again, 

Which he can never do that f s slain . 


THE CANNON-BALLS OF ALKMAAR 



THE CANNON-BALLS OF ALKMAAR 



1 LUMP! Clump! Clump! Clump! Grietje 


w was coming home with the evening’s milk. 
The sharp click of her wooden shoes on the 
brick pavement could be heard down the entire 
length of the little street, and the old people, 
sitting around the fires in their small cottages, 
smiled and nodded their heads. 

“Grietje is a good girl,” they said, “and as 
strong as a bull calf. Farmer Hoeck and his 
good wife have something to be proud of in 
their family, after all!” 

The children came running out of their 
houses to meet Grietje, for she was a favorite 
with them all, and could make grimaces to satis¬ 
fy the soul of any little urchin and make hiijj 
shriek with mirth. 

“Yes, yes, little ones,” Grietje replied to the 
shouts of the children, “I will pretend to be the 
old tavern-keeper, and run after you all with a 
stick. But first I must get the milk into the 


224 Proverb Stories of Many Lands 

cheese-house and pour it into the tubs, that it 
may quickly begin to turn to curds. Jan, keep 
away from the pails! You remember that the 
last time you upset one of them, my father 
made it painful for you, for ever so long, to 
lie down in bed or sit upon a stool. Marietje, 
is it fish for your mother’s dinner that you 
carry in your basket? My nose cannot mistake 
the smell of it. And the odor of fish, as you 
very well know, will frighten the cream right 
out of the milk, and then Mother Hoeck can 
make no butter. Run along, and carry your 
basket home; then perhaps you may return and 
play at teasing the old tavern-keeper, and I will 
run after you and search in every corner but 
the one where you are hidden!” 

While Grietje was jesting with the children 
she was carrying her pails of milk, two at a 
time, from the small boat moored in the canal, 
to the cheese-house, where it was poured into 
large vats and left for a time, that the cream 
might rise and be skimmed from the top. Then 
she mended the fire which kept the curing 
cheeses at a uniform temperature; and then 


The Cannon-Balls of Alkmaar 225 

for half an hour Grietje was free to romp 
with the children. 

The old folks were right: Grietje was a good 
girl, and as strong as a bull calf. With her 
flaxen hair streaming from under her snowy 
cap, and her red cheeks glowing with health 
and youth, she was a perfect type of Dutch 
maiden. There was nothing delicate about 
Grietje: her frame was large and her shoul¬ 
ders broad, and although she counted only 
twelve summers, she had been doing the entire 
work of the dairy on her father's farm ever 
since her brother Hendrik had run away to 
Liege, far in the Southland, to study paint¬ 
ing and engraving under the artist Lampsonius. 

Hendrik Hoeck was one of the members of 
the family about whom the town gossips had 
much to say. In that year of 1572, the Golden 
Age of Art had not yet dawned in north Hol¬ 
land, though it was already flourishing in 
Flanders; and the farmer-people of Alkmaar, 
where the Hoeck family lived, had little pa¬ 
tience with a great husky lad who neglected all 
his duties, and cared to do nothing the livelong 


226 Proverb Stories of Many Lands 

day but daub with paints and chalk on the walls 
of his father’s house, 

“The boy is queer/’ they would say. “Far¬ 
mer Hoeck will reap small satisfaction from 
his son, for the lad takes after his grandfather, 
and there is no knowing what he will do, or how 
he will end. With Grietje it is different!” 

But Hendrik Hoeck was not the only blot on 
the family honor. He was a very small blot 
indeed compared with old Jakob Hoeck, his 
grandfather. People did not talk of Jakob 
Hoeck except in a whisper and with frequent 
furtive glances over their shoulders, for no 
one could tell how far his power extended, nor 
for what evil purpose he might use it. It was 
said of him, by those who remembered, that he, 
also, had run away from home when he was 
young, and had wandered on foot through 
many lands—Italy, Spain, and Heaven knows 
where else! And when he returned, he did 
not settle down to be a decent farmer, which 
every one knows he should have done. In¬ 
stead, he built himself a little room and filled 
it with glass bottles and globes and vials and 
tubes, and here he poured different liquids to- 


The Cannon-Balls of Alkmaar 227 

gether, and made strange colors, and sometimes 
even hissing noises and wreaths of steam 
without the least vestige of fire. 

To-day we should call him an alchemist, the 
forerunner of our modern scientific chemist, 
from whom we have gained such important 
knowledge; but in the olden days he was ac¬ 
cused of witchcraft and magic, and was believed 
to hold communication with the devil and carry 
out the Evil One’s sinful schemes. 

Jakob Hoeck married a respectable village 
girl, and had an only son; and though he never 
put his hand to honest work, he always seemed 
to have enough money on which to live. Indeed, 
he paid for his supplies with gold, which (here 
the wise ones shook their heads knowingly) he 
doubtless made in his glass vials by means of 
black magic. 

But one day a disastrous thing happened. 
An explosion occurred in Jakob Hoeck’s labora¬ 
tory; an explosion which reverberated like 
thunder and caused the very earth to tremble; 
an explosion which wrecked the laboratory 
and nearly burned the whole house to the 
ground. As luck would have it, the life of 


228 Proverb Stories of Many Lands 

Jakob Hoeck was saved. He emerged from 
the ruins, badly burned and scratched, it is true, 
but smiling, despite all, for his soul was satis¬ 
fied. He had succeeded in producing artificially 
a substance called saltpeter, a necessary ingre¬ 
dient of gunpowder. The latter was still almost 
unknown in his country, but during his travels, 
he had seen it most effectively used by the 
Spaniards in their wars. 

He felt that the work he had done was good. 
The elders of the town—the whole community 
of Alkmaar, indeed—disagreed with him in 
this. They armed themselves with stones and 
bludgeons, and hurried to the still-smoldering 
remains of Hoeck’s laboratory. They stormed 
the place and routed him out, and pursued him 
through the streets of the town and past the 
city gates, and they forbade him on penalty of 
death, to enter Alkmaar again. 

Several miles distant from the town there 
was a dense woods, and in this woods Jakob 
Hoeck built himself a tiny hut, and made a small 
clearing, on which he could plant turnips and 
cabbages. And here he pursued his experi¬ 
ments undisturbed, and lived to be an old man. 


The Cannon-Balls of Alkmaar 229 

In the meantime his family, left behind in 
Alkmaar, managed to eke out a livelihood by 
some means or other, and his son grew up to 
become a prosperous farmer and law-abiding 
citizen, who never showed any tendency to 
follow the father’s strange ways. Farmer 
Hoeck, in good time, married and had two 
children, named Hendrik and Grietje. And so, 
you see, we come back to the starting-point of 
our narrative. 

Grietje, of course, had heard all the stories 
concerning her grandfather, and some of them 
were very elaborate indeed. She had even gone 
many times to the little hut in the woods, for 
Farmer Hoeck insisted that on certain feast- 
days in the year she should carry a basket with 
flour and cheese, a jug of milk, and several ells 
of good draper’s cloth, and leave them on the 
doorstep of her grandfather’s crude dwelling. 
This she had always done with trembling and 
a thumping heart, and then had run away to¬ 
ward home as though chased by a hundred 
goblins. She had never actually seen the old 
man on any of these occasions. In fact, I be¬ 
lieve that if he had appeared in the doorway of 


230 Proverb Stories of Many Lands 

his hut, Grietje would have swooned on the 
spot, for her fear was very terrible and real. 

Her visits to her grandfather’s home in the 
woods were the only exciting events in the life 
of Grietje, up to her thirteenth year, for other¬ 
wise her daily routine was peaceful enough, 
with the care of the cattle; the trip in the little 
boat, along the quiet canal morning and evening, 
to the pasture land to milk the cows; the churn¬ 
ing of the butter, and the salting of the cheese. 

But this peaceful life was not destined to con¬ 
tinue long. And one day Grietje did not come 
home with the evening milk! For this is what 
happened: 

She had started out, as was her custom, at 
about three o’clock in the afternoon, in her little 
boat filled with newly scrubbed wooden milk- 
pails. Onnoozel, her big, shaggy dog, ran along 
the bank of the canal and barked. He knew his 
business, did Onnoozel, even though he bore so 
uncomplimentary a name: it was to protect 
Grietje, and to stand guard over the buckets of 
milk until they were all collected. 

It took twenty minutes of vigorous rowing 
to reach the polder, and the milking of eight 


The Cannon-Balls of Alkmaar 231 

cows is likely to be a lengthy task, so nearly 
three hours had elapsed when Grietje’s boat 
rounded a curve in the canal and brought her 
in sight again of the ramparts of Alkmaar, 
But behold! The great plain outside the mas¬ 
sive walls of the city was filled with men in 
armor, and horses and tents, and the flags 
floating from the standards over the tents were 
the hated flags of Spain! 

Grietje’s blue eyes nearly popped from their 
sockets. Even Onnoozel stood still suddenly 
and ceased his joyous barking. Of course the 
girl had heard of the cruel Spanish troops who 
had swept over the whole of southern Holland 
and had vanquished every one in their path, 
News did not travel swiftly in those days; but 
there had been a report, several months before 
this, that Naarden had been destroyed by the 
Spanish under the Duke of Alva, and that the 
city of Haarlem was under siege. And 
now they were here, before the gates of Alk¬ 
maar ! The girl rested on her oars and stared 
and stared. What Would her mother do, and 
her father? Then another thought came: what 
would she herself do? 


232 Proverb Stories of Many Lands 

At last she squared her shoulders and began 
to row again. Onnoozel, silent now, kept even 
with the little boat. But two great swarthy 
soldiers, with lances in their hands, shouted at 
her and stopped her. One of them spoke 
broken Dutch, and he demanded her name and 
where she was going. 

Grietje was not a stupid girl, and she thought 
quickly. 

“My name is Marguerite,” she said. “I live 
yonder in the woods with my grandfather, who 
has been to Spain. I am taking this milk to be 
sold at the market in Alkmaar.” 

The soldiers laughed. 

“You will not get the milk to market this day, 
nor for many a day to come,” said the one who 
understood her language. “And you had better 
go home to your grandfather. This is no place 
for a pretty girl like you/’ and he stooped down 
from the little bridge on which he stood, and 
chucked her under the chin. 

Grietje did not like that. She began to row 
with all her strength, back toward the polder. 
Tears rolled down her cheeks, and something 
rose in her throat and almost choked her. 


The Cannon-Balls of Alkmaar 233 

When she had passed the lazy curve in the 
canal, she called Onnoozel, and he jumped down 
from the low bank and sat beside her in the 
little boat. 

“What is to become of us, Onnoozel ? And 
where shall we go?” she wailed. 

The dog poked his moist black nose into her 
hand. He was sympathetic, but had no sugges¬ 
tion to offer. The night was falling fast now; 
already the evening star shone in the darken¬ 
ing sky. 

“There is no one to go to but Grandfather.” 
A shudder passed over her as she spoke. “On¬ 
noozel, we shall have to go to Grandfather in 
the woods.” 

She moored the boat to a tree as near her 
destination as the canal would take her, and 
then, with the dog close at her heels, made her 
way into the dark forest. Once or twice she 
paused, and her courage nearly forsook her; 
but the thought of the cruel Spanish soldiers 
encamped at the gates of her city, made her 
grope her way on again. When at length she 
reached the hut, she crept up to the tiny window 
and peeped inside. Over a crackling fire of 


234 Proverb Stories of Many Lands 

dried twigs an iron pot was steaming. It might 
contain some deadly potion, some hideously 
concocted witch’s brew, but the smell that 
reached Grietje’s nose at the window indicated 
that it might contain — dinner. Onnoozel 
sniffed the welcome smell and wagged his tail. 

“Grandfather,” whispered Grietje at the 
window, “Grandfather, I am Grietje Hoeck.” 

Then she crouched down and waited. She 
heard some one shuffle across the floor of the 
hut and open the door. The light from the fire 
shone out into the woods. 

“Did some one call ?” It was a gentle voice 
that asked. “I bid the stranger welcome.” 

Then Onnoozel bounded over to the doorstep, 
and the old man put his hand on the dog’s 
shaggy head and stroked it. That was reas¬ 
suring, and Grietje stepped out of the shadow 
of the woods and stood before her grandfather. 

“You are my granddaughter,” he said at 
once. “I do not know your name, but I have 
seen you come and leave your basket at my 
door. I wished to speak to you, but I did not 
even show myself, for I saw you were afraid.” 

“I am afraid no longer,” replied Grietje, hon- 


The Cannon-Balls of Alkmaar 235 

estly, and lifted her face for her grandfather to 
kiss, and then willingly entered the shelter of 
his hut. 

That night a quantity of dinner was con¬ 
sumed in the hermit’s cabin such as had never 
before disappeared at one sitting there, for both 
Grietje and Onnoozel had healthy young appe¬ 
tites, and the alchemist certainly was no mean 
cook. ; 

Then they sat before the fire until very, very 
late, and Grietje told him about her father and 
mother, and about Hendrik, who had run away 
from home to become an artist, and the life 
they had all led in Alkmaar. And then she de¬ 
scribed the happenings of this eventful day: her 
attempt to return from the polder; the Spanish 
hosts surrounding her city’s walls; and her 
fears for the safety of her parents and the 
neighbors whom she loved. The old man sat 
looking into the fire very thoughtfully. 

“We must find a way to help them,” he said 
at length. “You and I must give assistance to 
our city!” 

And they did. 

At first Grietje could not understand how 


236 Proverb Stories of Many Lands 

the work she did day after day for her grand¬ 
father could be of any use to the inhabitants of 
Alkmaar. But the old man was very wise. 

“Be patient, my dear,” he told her. “Haast 
u langzaam. In the end you will see.” 

Haast u langzaam, you must know, means 
“Make haste slowly,” and Grietje, to whom had 
been proved in many ways the sound judgment 
and the goodness of old Jakob Hoeck, did his 
bidding without question. Morning and eve¬ 
ning she went to the polder with faithful On- 
noozle at her side, cared for the sleek cows graz¬ 
ing there, and brought the milk back to the hut 
in the woods. Into great wooden tubs, which 
her grandfather had fashioned, she poured the 
milk. To this she added the rennet which 
turned it rapidly to curds, and followed the pro¬ 
cedure of making it into cheese exactly as she 
had done in the old cheese-house at the back of 
her father’s home. 

Only, the molds into which she shaped it were 
different. Until that time, the cheeses made in 
Holland were rectangular, very much like a 
brick, though not quite so thick, and that was 
the shape in which Grietje had been accustomed 


The Cannon-Balls of Alkmaar 237 

to form the cheeses. But now her grandfather 
insisted that they be round. He hollowed out 
large spherical forms for her from solid blocks 
of wood, and when the cheeses were entirely 
cured and quite hard he dipped them in a fluid 
which dyed them black on the outside, and then 
he polished them with oil until they shone like 
globes of metal. In a few weeks the little hut 
was stacked with polished black cheeses. 

Then, one day, Jakob Hoeck called Grietje. 

“Come, my dear,” he said. “You are to go 
with me on a most important errand. You will 
carry this sack, which is rather heavy, for 
it contains two spheres of iron of the same size 
as your cheeses; and you must hold them care¬ 
fully, so that they do not jolt nor knock against 
each other. But before we start you must 
promise me that, whatever you see or hear this 
day, you will show no surprise, nor on any 
account utter a single word!” 

When Grietje had solemnly promised, the 
old man helped her lift the heavy sack to her 
shoulder. Then they set off through the woods, 
Jakob Hoeck leading the way, in the direction 
of Alkmaar, 


238 Proverb Stories of Many Lands 

The Spanish soldier who accosted them, when 
they reached the plain before the city walls, was 
much astonished when this stranger, bent with 
age, demanded in excellent Spanish to be 
directed to the general’s tent. 

“You must tell your mission and who you are, 
before I will let you pass,” he was told. 

“I am an enemy of Alkmaar, and so your 
friend,” Jakob replied. 

It was well that Grietje did not understand 
the tongue in which he spoke, now to the sen¬ 
tinel and later to the great Don Valdez himself, 
for her amazement would have appeared upon 
her face in spite of herself. We, who have the 
advantage of comprehending any language, 
shall know just what he said. 

When Jakob Hoeck was brought into the 
presence of Don Valdez, he dropped respect¬ 
fully to his knees. Grietje stood in the entrance 
of the tent, her. sack slung over her shoulder, 
and her countenance as stolid as only a Dutch 
countenance can be. 

“Great and noble Spaniard,” began the old 
man,” I am an alchemist who has traveled long 
in Spain and Italy, in Egypt and Arabia; and 


The Cannon-Balls of Alkmaar 239 

I have learned many of the secrets of the wise 
men of these lands. I bring to you one of the 
most profound of these secrets, with which you 
will be able to subdue quickly the city under 
whose walls you are encamped. It is because 
this city has used me so ill that I would wreak 
vengeance by placing my power in your hands. 
I am an outcast of Alkmaar, one who has suf¬ 
fered exile and humiliation for many years; 
now the houses of its inhabitants shall crumble 
under my mighty blasts !” 

“Let us see what you have brought,” de¬ 
manded Don Valdez. 

“Bring me thy sack, Granddaughter,” old 
Jakob called, and he lifted a black and polished 
cannon-ball from its folds. Then he continued: 

“It is because saltpeter is brought from far¬ 
away India and is so exceedingly scarce, that 
your mortars lie idle, or are used to fling harm¬ 
less stones. I have discovered how to produce 
saltpeter, and I can supply you with balls of 
fire, like this one, in large quantities.” 

“We will see if you speak truth,” said Don 
Valdez, and sent for the captain of the battery. 

“Place this black ball in your mortar,” he 


240 Proverb Stories of Many Lands 

commanded the captain, “and aim at yonder 
tree. If you can indeed supply us with gun¬ 
powder, good alchemist, we shall repay you 
well.” 

“I ask for no pay,” replied Jakob Hoeck. 
“The ruins of Alkmaar shall be my reward.” 

Hardly had he spoken when a noise like thun¬ 
der filled the air, and the sturdy tree, with its 
branches broken and splintered, came crashing 
to the ground. 

“We will try the other fire-ball upon that 
mound of sand,” commanded Don Valdez, and 
pointed his jeweled finger. 

And the gleam that shone in his eye when the 
mound of sand rose into the air and then de¬ 
scended like a rain of ashes, was the gleam 
of conquest. 

“Bring us all the cannon-balls you can make,” 
said the general; “and when Alkmaar has fal¬ 
len, we shall send a message to our king, so that 
he may reward your service.” 

Jakob Hoeck bowed low. 

“I will send all I can, each day,” he said. 
“But let me warn you not to waste my fire-balls 
on Alkmaar’s walls. Those ramparts are too 


The Cannon-Balls of Alkmaar 241 

thick and strong to yield. Throw the deadly 
missies over the walls, and they are sure to 
destroy houses and lives, and bring the stubborn 
city to its knees.” 

The old man bowed himself out of the august 
presence, and trudged back to his hut in the 
woods, supporting himself on Grietje’s sturdy 
shoulder. There was a smile upon his face 
which it was well Don Valdez could not see. 

Then Jakob Hoeck set to work quickly to 
build a little cart for Onnoozel to draw. Hol¬ 
land is a land, you must remember, where dogs 
were used as beasts of burden, and indeed, still 
are; and Onnoozel was not unaccustomed to a 
harness. When the small cart was finished, the 
old man decorated it with gay colors, and on the 
tail-board he painted the words: Haast U 
Langzaam. 

From that time on, Grietje went daily 
through the woods to the Spanish camp, leading 
Onnoozel, with the cart stacked full of shiny 
black cheeses. Never a word did she utter on 
these occasions, nor answer the sallies of the 
soldiers, but delivered her cargo of “cannon¬ 
balls” to the captain of the battery, and then 


242 Proverb Stories of Many Lands 

sometimes stood to watch a few of them hurled 
over the walls and dropped into the city. 

Old Jakob Hoeck was a wise man. He knew 
that the natives of Alkmaar were patriots, as 
he himself was most truly one, and that they 
would hold out against their enemies until star¬ 
vation forced them to submit. That is the way 
in a siege, you know; for it is not a pitched 
battle, and sometimes there is very little fight¬ 
ing; it is a patient blockade, lasting until the 
food supply of the city is exhausted. 

The throwing force of the ancient cannon 
was not very great, but, as you can imagine, 
when Grietje’s cheeses fell on the roofs or 
brick pavements of Alkmaar, they cracked and 
broke in many pieces. And so the people soon 
discovered of what material these strange mis¬ 
siles were made, and how valuable they were. 
Cheese is exceedingly nutritious, as the thrifty 
Dutch people know well. 

Now that this added duty, this trip each day 
to the Spanish camp had to be accomplished, 
there was more work for Grietje than she could 
do. But assistance came most unexpectedly. 


The Cannon-Balls of Alkmaar 243 

One day, when the young girl was on the 
polder milking the cows, she noticed a stranger- 
lad of fifteen or sixteen sitting on the bank of 
the canal, sketching in an artist’s portfolio. 
When she carried her pails of foaming white 
milk to the little boat, this youth addressed her 
and showed her the picture he had made- of the 
contented, grazing cattle and the pretty milk¬ 
maid. 

“I am a stranger to this part of the country,” 
said the lad. : “Can you direct me to the city 
of Alkmaar? For I carry a message to one 
Farmer Hoeck, who lives there.” 

“I am the daughter of Farmer Hoeck,” cried 
Grietje, excitedly, “and it is to me you will have 
to deliver your message, for the city of Alk¬ 
maar is beleaguered by the Spanish, and no one 
can enter there.” 

“It is from your brother that I bring news,” 
replied the youth. “He is a fellow-student with 
me under the master Lampsonius. He begged 
me to visit his family on my sketching-trip of 
the north country, and to tell them that he is 
doing well, and is happy in his work,” 


244 Proverb Stories of Many Lands 

“Come,” said the practical Grietje. “You 
must get into the boat and go with me to my 
grandfather’s home in the woods.” 

When the young artist, whose name was 
Otho van Veens, heard of the plight of the city 
of Alkmaar, and of the ambitious scheme of 
Jakob Hoeck, he abandoned his plan of travel 
and set to work with a will, adding his young 
strength to the work of succoring the town. 
He too was a loyal Dutchman, a native of Ley¬ 
den, and he had seen much of the evil wrought 
by the Spaniards in his land. 

So the three patriots labored in the little hut 
in the woods, day after day, and week after 
week. And Alkmaar did not yield. 

One morning Grietje brought back a letter 
for Jakob Hoeck from the Spanish camp. 

“You are commanded to appear at once be¬ 
fore Don Valdez,” it read, “and you had better 
lose no time.” 

The old man’s face paled. Had the Span¬ 
iards discovered how he had deceived them; the 
calamitous trick he had played? He could hope 
for no mercy from them, then. But bravely he 
went, alone, to answer the call. 


The Cannon-Balls of Alkmaar 245 

Don Valdez sat in his tent, and there was 
an ugly frown upon his brow. 

“For many weeks we have been bombarding 
this city, ,, he said, “and still it does not fall.” 

The old man moistened his lips and tried to 
smile. 

“They are a stubborn people,” he said, “but 
they must be growing very weak.” 

“We strongly suspect that your fire-balls are 
powerless and do no harm,” continued the gen¬ 
eral. “When we shoot them over the walls, we 
hear no explosion and we see no smoke.” 

“It is because they fall amongst the houses,” 
answered Jakob Hoeck, “so that the sound and 
scattering fire do their damage without rising 
above the roofs. But I will prove the power 
of my gunpowder, good general. Perhaps your 
captain is not as skilful at handling his weapon 
as I might be. Permit me, then, to load and 
shoot your cannon once, to demonstrate that I 
speak truth.” 

“Aim at yonder bridge across the canal,” or¬ 
dered Don Valdez, “and if it does not fall a 
total wreck, things will go ill with you.” 

Into the breach of the cannon, then, Jakob 


246 Proverb Stories of Many Lands 

Hoeck slipped a real cannon-ball which he had 
brought with him, concealed in his doublet. 
And lo! the bridge was completely destroyed. 

Don Valdez was a hard and bitter man to 
his enemies, but he also was a courtier and a 
gentleman, and his apologies to the old al¬ 
chemist were sincere and gracious. And so, 
many weeks passed again, and still Grandfather 
Hoeck and Grietje and Otho van Veens toiled 
on in the woods. 

Even though something is expected at any 
moment over a long space of time, it is apt to 
come as a surprise in the end. One morning 
Grietje stood among the soldiers of the Spanish 
battery, her cart-load of cheeses just delivered, 
and waited to see the first of these shot over the 
walls of her city. When—behold!—The gates 
of Alkmaar swung open and many men 
marched forth. 

“Alkmaar surrenders!” went up the shout of 
the Spanish camp. 

But in a few moments some one perceived 
that the men of the city were armed, and that 
they marched in military order. They had not 
come to plead for leniency from their conquer- 


The Cannon-Balls of Alkmaar 247 

ors; they had come to fight! Don Valdez’s 
army was taken unaware. The soldiers 
scrambled for their armor and their weapons. 

“We will shoot a fire-ball among them,” cried 
the captain of the cannon. “We will crush them 
into the ground, like a swarm of miserable in¬ 
sects !” 

So the mortar was aimed, and the missile set, 
and the order given to shoot. A few Dutchmen 
fell, and rolled over once or twice in the sand ; 
but there was no explosion and no fire, and the 
yellow stuff that spattered over the spot where 
the “fire-ball” had dropped was not gunpowder, 
it was cheese! 

There was consternation and confusion in 
the Spanish camp then. The shouts of the offi¬ 
cers could not restore order. And that was 
fortunate for Grietje, standing there amongst 
them. She succeeded in making her escape, and 
ran with the speed of the wind to the woods. 

“We are discovered!” was her breathless 
story. “The Spanish know how we have tricked 
them!” 

“Then flee as I have directed you should do 
in this event,” spoke Jakob Hoeck. “Otho, I 


248 Proverb Stories of Many Lands 

trust to you to protect my Grietje. Go with her 
to a distant part of the woods and climb into 
a tall tree, and hide there till the danger is 
passed.” 

“But you, Grandfather!” cried Grietje; 
“what will become of you!” 

“I am an old man,” said the alchemist, “and 
I have done my duty. That is enough for me.” 

Van Veens forced Grietje to go, then, and 
Jakob Hoeck remained alone with Onnoozel, 
sitting in his hut in the woods, waiting. All the 
afternoon he sat so, till the twilight fell. Then 
he heard the sound of voices and the tramping 
of many feet. He trembled a little, but he did 
not move. 

When the men of Alkmaar broke in at the 
door they found the old man preparing his soul 
for a horrible death. How little he was pre¬ 
pared for their acclaim and praise and joy, 
you can well imagine. But when they carried 
him on their shoulders through the woods 
across the plain, through the city gates, and to 
the very doorstep of the home of his son, the 
alchemist of Alkmaar woods received his re¬ 
ward* 


The Cannon-Balls of Alkmaar 249 

Soon Grietje and Otho van Veens crept 
through the open city gates, also, and shared in 
the triumphant applause of the people they had 
saved. I will not dwell too long upon this scene 
of joy, for you can easily picture it for your¬ 
selves. 

But let me tell how Otho van Veens soon set 
out for Italy, to study the great works of the 
ancient masters. And how when he returned in 
1580 he married Grietje Hoeck and took her to 
live in Antwerp and later in Brussels, where 
his studio was famous, and where he was the 
master of the greatest of Flemish artists, Peter 
Paul Rubens. 

Some of the results of Grietje’s eventful life 
are still visible to-day. Most striking of all, 
perhaps, is the shape of Holland’s cheeses. 
They are painted red now, it is true, instead of 
black, for there is no need to disguise them as 
cannon-balls; but in contents, shape, size, and 
weight they are quite the same as Grietje and 
Jakob Hoeck made them in the little hut in the 
woods. 

If you wish to see how Grietje looked, you 


250 Proverb Stories of Many Lands 

will find in the Louvre, in Paris, a picture by 
Otho van Veens, of himself and his family, 
painted in 1584. 

And until recently there was preserved in 
Alkmaar a small dog-cart, with gay colors, and 
on the tail-board were the words: 

Make haste slowly . 


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